The Wizard of Mazd
by AkamaiMom
Summary: Sam's in a foul mood, and the guys are giving her the silent treatment. Heck of a way to start a mission. And what's with the gold shoes?
1. Chapter 1

**The Wizard of Mazd**

"So where we going again?"

"P3X 784, sir." Carter fiddled with her pack. Something wasn't sitting right—it was riding weird on her shoulder. And whenever she moved, the straps slid a little.

"That the planet with the little people?"

"The Mazdans, sir. It was in the report."

"Yeah—they're only—yea-high." He motioned with his palm down at a point just at his rib cage. "Little people."

"I'm sure they don't consider themselves to be little, Jack." Daniel had finally gotten to the 'Gate Room. "Maybe they consider us to be big."

"Wouldn't that then _define _them as** '**little'?" He used his fingers as quotation marks on the pertinent words. "I mean, us being 'big' and all. . ."

Daniel sighed and glanced at Sam, who was still adjusting the straps on her pack. "What's wrong, Sam?"

"I don't know. I can't get the idiotic straps adjusted right. It's like someone else has been wearing it—or maybe it's just because it's a stupid government-issue P. O. S."

Daniel moved past Jack and stopped beside her. "You want me to take a look at it?"

"Oh yeah—Mr. Technology to the rescue." Sam snapped at him. She yanked on the strap again, and tried to rig the end to secure it.

"I'm just trying to help, Sam."

"What are you going to do, Daniel, _translate_ it?"

Daniel turned back to Jack. "Wow." He mouthed, wise enough not to say it. His eyebrows rose and then furrowed. Sometimes Carter really _was_ the "girl". A girl who could kill him with her thumb. And who, at this exact moment, probably wanted to.

Time to change the subject, he decided.

"So, SG-10 says that there's an Ancient repository there. They wanted us to look at it because we—well, you, Jack," he nodded his head meaningfully at the Colonel, "have a history with that sort of thing. Apparently you seem to be a magnet for odd technology."

"Hey! I only got my head sucked on by one of those things _once_." Jack waggled his index finger pointedly at the archaeologist. "You've landed in the infirmary _way_ more times than I have."

Daniel raised his eyebrows and then shook his head. "I don't think so. You've been skewered to the wall, shot, and morphed into an old man—Then, there was the time that you died. I mean. . ."

"We all kicked it that time, Daniel. You've died, what, three times since we've met?"

"No, I've _nearly_ died and was luckily saved at the last moment."

"At least I've never been addicted to a sarcophagus."

"Yeah, well, I've never been made into a Jaffa."

"Aacht! Daniel—we agreed to put that into the vault."

"Colonel O'Neill and Daniel!" Teal'c's voice stopped them. "I believe that both of you have spent an equal amount of time in the medical facilities here at the SGC. It is Major Carter and I who appear to be more hardy."

Carter's pack chose just then to drop to the floor with a loud thud. "Son of a --!" She shouted. "Stupid! Crapping! Piece! Of! Crap!" She punctuated each word by kicking her pack.

"Carter!"

At O'Neill's yell, she stopped. The Colonel moved so that he stood directly in front of her. "So—uh—who peed in your Cheerios?"

Her vivid eyes flashed at him briefly, and then dropped suddenly to the floor. He could feel her relax slightly—but he knew she was forcing herself to. "I don't know, sir. I guess I'm just in a mood."

"Majors don't have _moods_, Carter." His voice was low.

So was hers. "This one does, sir." She took a deep breath and looked at him again. "Maybe you guys should go ahead, sir, and I'll change out my pack and catch up?"

O'Neill let go of her arm and considered. Turning back to Daniel, he raised his brows. "These Mousemen—they're friendlies?"

"Mazdans, Jack, and yes, they're friendly."

Jack glanced back at Carter, who stood staring stubbornly at the offending pack. Her face and ears were tinged pink, a sign that she needed a few minutes alone to cool off. That, or beat the crap out of someone. He hoped that this time it wouldn't be him. He'd made the mistake of sparring with her once when her ears were that color, and he hadn't been able to breathe deeply for a week.

"Then you'll catch up, Carter. You've been working pretty hard. Maybe you just need a break. Take a breather. Take a moment. Take a. . ." He wisely turned away before he said, "Midol."

"What was that sir?"

"Nothing, Carter. We'll stay within a click of the 'Gate—we'll give you an hour."

"One hour, sir." She picked up the offending pack and dragged it from the room.

----OOOOOOO----

An hour later, with a new, reloaded pack on her shoulders, Sam stepped through the 'Gate.

SG-10 had reported that the village of Mazd was a bustling town filled with friendly people. The 'Gate was centered in the village square, and the locals had paved the area around the platform with patterned tiles. On the western outskirts of the village, they had reported finding the requisite trees and forests, a wide river several clicks to the south of the main village, and an eastern countryside largely dominated by farmland and grazing fields. A single paved road led from the village through the countryside to a large stone tower forty kilometers due north. The tower housed the Ancient repository.

Sam had prepared an apology as she repacked her gear. She hated losing her temper. She knew that when she was moody or irritable, the guys automatically guessed that it was her time of the month. Not that they would ever bring it up. Somehow that made it worse—them assuming. But then they'd all been married at one point or another—so they knew about these sorts of "chick" things. And she had to think that even Jaffa women had some sort of cycle. She grimaced when she thought of Daniel, Teal'c and the Colonel walking through Mazd, discussing her surliness.

But the worst part was that PMS wasn't anywhere near what her moodiness was about. She'd sighed loudly on that thought as she'd stepped through the shimmering event horizon. She expected that she'd have to make some sort of amends.

----OOOOOOO----

As the wormhole closed behind her, nothing stirred except the hair on the back of her neck.

What appeared to be every citizen of Mazd gathered at the 'Gate. They knelt in a semicircle—women, men, children—completely silent, faces stony. A thick stillness permeated the air. The village around the 'Gate seemed like a ghost town, completely devoid of movement or life.

The men of SG-1 knelt at the base of the platform, frozen, staring blankly at the 'Gate. She'd thought that she would have to make good time to catch up with them—she'd figured to be making her apologies as they hiked towards the north. She hadn't been expecting to find the rest of her team right in front of her, as silent as statues.

And she **really** hadn't been expecting to see the golden shoes on the edge of the platform in front of her, with the smoking stumps still inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sam instantly hefted her P-90 into position and turned 360 degrees. Her gut told her that there wasn't any imminent danger around, but her soldier's training told her to check, anyway. It only took a few minutes to be sure that she was the only thing in the immediate area that was capable of moving, let alone being a danger.

Keeping her weapon engaged, Sam descended the steps. She glanced at the odd gilded shoes on the edge of the platform as she passed them, but her real interest was in the rest of her team.

They were kneeling, still holding their weapons, their packs still on their backs. The Colonel had taken his shades off and stowed them, as usual, hanging by one temple in the neck of his shirt. His face showed an expression of being severely pissed off. Daniel's quizzical expression almost made him look childlike, and Teal'c looked murderous. They were completely still.

Sam took off her pack and lowered her weapon, dropping them both to the ground near the three men. She crouched in front of them, studying their faces—trying to see signs of life. They weren't breathing. There wasn't a tell-tale pulse at the base of their throats. She reached out and touched Daniel's hand. It was surprisingly warm. She felt at the base of his wrist, but could still not feel a pulse.

Turning to the Colonel, she tried for a pulse at his carotid artery, his skin felt—like skin. Warm, pliant, and dry. But still, she didn't feel a pulse.

She'd felt dead bodies before. She knew what dead skin felt like—even only a few minutes after death, the skin felt different—but both the Colonel and Daniel had felt completely alive—just without the pulses and breathing that would qualify them as such.

"Okay, Colonel, I'm going to survey the area and try to see if I can find out what's going on." She resisted the urge to say, "Stay here."

Sam crossed the tiled portion of the square and crouched down in front of a Mazdan woman. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm just going to check for your pulse." Sam fit her fingers around the woman's tiny wrist and waited, but found no more sign there than she had with her team.

"Okay." She said out loud, standing. "What next?"

Call home.

----OOOOOOOO----

Sam jogged back to the gate and stopped in front of the platform. Turning to her right, then to her left, she felt her heart sink. She made a wide circuit around the 'Gate and platform, but to no avail. The DHD was gone. There was a light spot on the tiles around the platform that testified that there had, at one point been a DHD, but the actual device wasn't there. Twenty minutes of searching told her that it wasn't secreted away in any of the buildings surrounding the town square, either.

Returning to the platform, she considered her options.

SG-1 had come to Mazd preparing to attempt to download the Ancient repository of knowledge into a crystal memory bank borrowed from the Asgard. Sam knew that Teal'c's pack carried the memory bank and a naquadah generator they'd planned to use to power the download. If she could rig the generator to the 'Gate, she could attempt a manual dialing.

Stepping over a few Mazdans, she made her way to Teal'c. His pack still rested on his large shoulders. She touched it, felt for the zipper under the flap, but couldn't insert her fingers under the flap to open it. It was if an unseen force were pushing her fingers away. The opening was there, but she couldn't breach it. She turned to Daniel's pack. The zipper was just there—exposed—but no matter what she tried, she couldn't move it. She could grasp it, but she couldn't lift it or move it.

Darn if she wasn't back to wanting to kick things.

She made her way back up the platform and sat on one of the middle steps.

"Think, Sam, think. Think. Think." She rested her chin on her cupped hands, elbows digging into her knees. "Thinking. Thinking."

"What are the anomalies? What are the obvious anomalies?"

It was if they had all been turned to stone, but she was certain that they weren't dead. They were all affected equally, so she felt sure that the same affliction had befallen all of them at the same time. She surveyed the area—everybody was kneeling, facing the 'Gate—

Facing the platform where she now sat. But when she'd "kawhooshed" the shoe-wearer away, they'd been facing. . .

The golden shoes. It was the only thing that stood out—so to speak.

Sam stood and ascended the stairs until she was at eye level with the golden shoes. Whoever had been using the gold shoes had been caught up in the matter stream which emitted when the event horizon had opened. Why they hadn't moved when they had heard the chevrons engaging was a question to be asked. Perhaps the more important question was who this person had been.

But the footwear wasn't talking.

The shoes weren't tiny—they were large enough for an Earth sized person, certainly large enough for Sam herself, and she wore a healthy size 9 and a half. Sam had once owned a pair much the same fashion as these—a sort of ballet flat with a strap across the arch. She thought they were called Mary Janes. There were still feet in these particular Mary Janes, and stumps of legs rising about nine inches. The open wounds at the tops had been cauterized. At first glance, the shoes appeared to be painted leather, but on further examination, Sam discovered that they were actually hammered metal. They were actually gold.

Frowning, Sam picked one shoe up. Quickly, before she could think about what she was doing, she grasped the leg inside and yanked it free. She dropped it to the platform, where it hit with a sickening thud. The shoe was heavier than she'd thought it would be. The clasp on the strap was secured with what looked like a ruby button. On the back end of the shoe—on the inside heel, there was another ruby set into the metal of the shoe.

The other shoe had a matching ruby and clasp. Sam dispensed with the other leg and held the two shoes together.

Once, when she'd been nine, she'd struck a deal with her mother. She'd wanted to go to space camp, but her mother had wanted her to take ballet lessons. The deal had been that if she taken six months of ballet and danced in the winter recital, the following summer she could spend two full weeks at space camp. It had nearly killed her—all that pink. But she'd learned the five positions of ballet and the plies and leaps and done her dancing in the studio's performance of "Cinderella". And if her part in the recital had been that of the mouse turned carriage horse, well so what?

But Sam couldn't help but look at those shoes and think of first position. If someone were wearing the shoes and happened to be in first position, the rubies would hit each other. She turned the shoes and looked inside them. They were lined with what seemed to be padded silk.

She put one shoe down on the step and reached for the knife on her thigh. Carefully, she used the tip to pry the fabric away from the metal outer portion of the shoe at the heel. Opening up a section of a few inches, she peered inside to find a tiny crystal-charged mechanism inside the shoe directly connected to where the ruby was embedded in the heel.

The shoes weren't just shoes at all, but some sort of alien device. Probably Goa'uld in origin. But what did it do? Intuitively, Sam just _knew_ that those shoes were the reason for her stony audience.

She prodded at the ruby on the shoe—but the stone held firm. It wasn't a button or a trigger. Juggling both shoes in one hand, she touched their heels together while peering into the lining. The tiny crystals in the mechanism failed to engage.

She hit them together again.

Nothing happened.

But then, nothing happened if you tried to use a Goa'uld hand device without an actual hand in it, either. With the naquadah left over in her system from Jolinar, Sam figured that she could probably control this device like she had the hand device when she'd killed Seth back in Washington.

Sighing, she sat on the steps and unlaced her boots. She stripped off her socks, too. Then, placing the shoes on the step directly in front of her, she carefully eased her feet into the shoes and fastened the straps. Then she stood.

"Here goes nothing."

Taking a deep breath, she assumed first position and clicked her heels together.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Nothing happened.

Stunned, Sam looked down at the shoes and then back up at the scene before her. She'd been so certain. Again, the urge to kick something arose full within her.

Over the years, SG-1 had come upon some pretty interesting Goa'uld technology. When Sam had first donned the hand device on Cimmeria, she'd felt its power within her, echoing through the traces of naquadah in her system. She'd made it work almost accidentally—surprising both Daniel and herself. Her actions towards Seth, however, had been deliberate. She'd hated doing it, but she'd knowingly aimed the power of the device at the Goa'uld and used it against him.

Staff weapons fired using a sort of trigger, but weapons used exclusively by the Goa'uld needed something else—intent.

She took a deep breath. She aimed her attention completely at the scene before her, decided what she wanted the shoes to do, and then clicked her heels again.

Again, nothing.

"Oh, for the love of pete." She clicked again, harder.

Instantly, all around, was tumult. Crying, wailing, shouting. The Mazdans began running—seemingly aimlessly, their brightly colored clothing only adding to the confusion. Sam glanced down at the team just in time to see Colonel O'Neill raise his weapon to squeeze off a shot. She threw herself to the side as the bullet ricocheted off the 'Gate into the forest.

It was Daniel's voice that brought order.

"Stop!" He shouted through the chaos. "Listen to me! Stop! Calm down!"

The Mazdans quieted their wailing. Hesitantly, cautiously, they stood, moving _en masse_ closer to the 'Gate. One, ostensibly a leader of sorts, stepped outside the crowd and edged nearer the platform.

"Where did she go?"

"Where did _who_ go?"

"The unkind one? The one who was not wanted?"

Daniel shrugged, eyes wide. "I don't know. I don't know what happened. Let me talk with my team and we'll try to come up with some answers."

"_I_ know what happened," Colonel O'Neill strode forward. "That snake-headed _thing_ used those things—" he pointed at the shoes on Sam's feet, "—to freeze us all."

"But what happened to her?" Daniel was speaking to Sam, now. "What did you do to her? How did you overpower her? Once she gated through, we were all completely—"

"Screwed is what we were." O'Neill, again. He sighed, blowing out through pursed lips. It seemed to help him relax when it made a rude noise. "Okay. Carter—what happened?"

"I can't completely explain it. I gated through, and you were all frozen, to use the Colonel's vernacular. I didn't see a person. All I saw were the shoes on the edge of the 'Gate platform with those," she motioned towards the leg stumps lying off to one side, "still inside. I must have gotten her with the matter stream of the event horizon."

At this O'Neill looked mollified. "Good aim. And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving snake head."

"Anyhow, I reconned the area to see if there were any more unfriendlies around, then came back to see if you were all still alive or if you were dead."

"And we were alive." Daniel prompted.

"Yeah, but no pulse, no breathing. Your skin was warm." At this her eyes caught the Colonel's, but she looked away before she could blush. "I figured I'd better call for backup—but there's no DHD."

"What the. . ." Jack turned in a large circle, scanning the area. "Where did it go? Did we confirm it was here when we first came through?"

"All I remember is pain." Daniel removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Pain and then nothing."

"I do not recall seeing the DHD either." Teal'c finally spoke up. "There is an indication that at one time it stood there." He motioned with his staff weapon at the clean spot in the tile.

"It couldn't have been easy to move. I remember trying to move the one we found in Antarctica. I could hardly budge it." Sam shook her head. "Whoever did it, did it quickly, and with some help."

"So—when you couldn't find it. . .?" The Colonel prompted Sam to continue.

"I thought I would try to dial home manually, using the naquadah generator in Teal'c's pack as a power source. But I couldn't touch the zipper in the pack. It was if there was a bubble of some sort repelling my fingers. I tried getting into Daniel's pack, too, and I couldn't do it. Like the force shield that Malakai used on P4X-639."

"Powered or engaged by those shoes."

"Yes, sir."

"And so you figured that you could use them to un-freeze us."

"Yes, sir. With the naquadah in my system—I can still use Goa'uld technology."

"Good thinking." His brown eyes warmed with approval. His voice lowered. "Yet another one I owe you."

"Well, I'm not sure how grateful you are, sir. After all, you did just try to shoot me."

O'Neill grinned lazily. "Last thing I remember before checking out was thinking I had to take her out. Obviously when you un-froze us. . ." he trailed off.

"I understand, sir."

"You know I wouldn't ever. . ."

"Of course, not, sir."

"Sam." His tone urged her attention. She looked up at him. "Not ever. Not one golden hair on that genius head."

Sam smiled, dropping her face. She pretended to examine the golden shoes on her feet as she waited for her smile to fade. Sometimes the Colonel still surprised her.

The brave Mazdan edged closer to SG-1. "Permit me to intrude." For the first time, Sam really noticed the man. He was a bit larger than the average Mazdan. His full beard was short and white, as was the hair visible around the edges of what looked to be a wildly colored stocking cap. He wore a full sleeved white shirt and a multi-colored felt vest, plaid trousers, and bright white socks. His shoes were little more than slippers. As much as she tried not to, Sam couldn't help but be reminded of one of Santa's elves.

"Is she gone?"

The Colonel turned to face him. "She won't be back."

"Are you certain? Absolutely certain? She was only with us for a short time—but oh, what a nasty woman! What a demanding guest!"

"Who was she?" Daniel asked.

"She came through the Chappa'i a few weeks ago." As he spoke, other villagers approached the group. "She demanded a room in one of our homes. She demanded food and clothing and help. She was—not kind."

"Not kind." The other Mazdans parroted. "Not kind."

"She commanded that we take her to the North Tower—but we do not go to the North Tower. It is too dangerous—perilous—hazardous."

"Fraught with risk!" One of the villagers chimed in.

"I hate it when things get fraught." The Colonel commiserated.

"So, what did you do?" Daniel ignored Jack and stepped aside, opening their circle to the villagers. "How did she force you to do these things?"

"We told her we cannot survive the journey to the Tower. Through the Fields of Dandsa and the Forest Necra, we cannot go." A woman was speaking now, wearing a lively knitted dress and a white petticoat showing lace underneath. Her slippers had been decorated with dozens of bright bows. Her hair lay in a long red braid down her back. As she spoke, she drew the braid over her shoulder and played with it nervously. "We are but Mazdans. We don't travel well."

"Yeah, you really need a Ford for that sort of cross country stuff."

"Jack." Daniel rolled his eyes. Turning back toward the assembled crowd, he asked, "But we thought that the road to the Tower was well paved and easily travelled."

"For a giant such as you, perhaps. But not for such as we."

"See there, Daniel. You're a giant among men. Well, little tiny ones, anyway."

Daniel glared at Jack over the rims of his glasses for a long moment before taking a deep breath and turning his attention back towards the Mazdans. "But you never answered my previous question. How did this woman force you to do things?"

At this the Mazdans whispered amongst themselves for a few moments before the man with the beard spoke again. "She was—cruel."

"Cruel, yes." Daniel nodded, "Cruel how?"

"She hurt me. A bright light came out of her hand and I was greatly pained."

Daniel turned his head aside briefly and whispered, "Hand device?"

Teal'c nodded his agreement. "It would appear so, Daniel Jackson."

"She was cruel to us, too." Daniel returned his attention to the Mazdan. "I remember that she had some sort of scepter."

"She used the Wand of Light." The woman was speaking again, in a tone of hushed reverence.

"The Wand of Light and the Golden Shoes—together they perform terrible magic!" A third Mazdan stepped forward—a younger man. His beard had not yet turned gray.

"Terrible magic!" The Mazdans repeated.

"Did she bring these items with her through the gate?"

"Only the Wand of Light. She found the shoes in her journey to the North Tower."

Daniel's brows raised at that. "So she went without you?"

"Oh yes," said the third Mazdan. "But she was not so alone."

"Which of you went with her?" Sam's eyes narrowed. "Or are there other people here in Mazd who are better equipped for travel?"

The red-braided Mazdan woman shook her head and smiled, as if condoling with a slow witted child. "Sweet maid," said she, her hands busy with her braid, "she traveled to the North Tower with her sister."

"Her twin is still there." The white-bearded man spoke again, "Waiting her return."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Didja hear that, Carter?" O'Neill raised his eyebrows at her meaningfully. "Ka-whoosh vic has a twin." He rocked back on his heels and gave her his most childish smile. "You might have some 'splainin' to do."

"Sir, I didn't kill her on purpose."

"Of course you did. You wanted the shoes."

Sam looked down to where the shoes still gleamed on her feet. "Sir—"

"You might want to take those off before we see Sis."

Sam hesitated briefly. She bent and tried to unfasten the buckle on the right shoe. She couldn't. The left one was equally immovable. "Uh, sir?"

"Can't?"

Sam could only shake her head.

"I was really, _really_ afraid of that."

"I couldn't have known what would happen. I was only trying to help."

"Jack knows that, Sam," Daniel sighed. He turned back into the team, so that once again they formed a huddle. "What now? We could just use the naquadah generator and dial home. . ."

"But would that not leave the people of this planet subject to the whims of this woman?"

"Yeah, Teal'c. We should probably pick up some reinforcements. Come back with a couple other SG teams, take care of her, and then download whatever it is that has Daniel so excited."

"I believe he refers to it as 'meaning of life' material."

"Meaning of life _stuff_, T, he calls it 'stuff'."

"I called it that _one time_, and you people can't leave it alone."

"Well, coming from the usually verbose Dr. Daniel Jackson, 'meaning of life stuff' was surprisingly unpretentious."

"Oh, so now you think I'm pretentious?"

"I've _always_ thought you were pretentious—even after I finally found out what it actually meant."

Sam—for the briefest of moments—actually considered clicking her heels again. If only to make it stop. The thought of the two of them frozen with these childish expressions on their faces actually filled her with the kind of pleasure normally associated with Christmas mornings and really good first dates. With a lingering sigh, she chose the high road, instead.

"Guys," Sam interjected, "we have to make a decision. Colonel, do you want me to hook up the generator? Or do we go to the Tower?"

Daniel spoke first. "I just don't think we can leave this woman here—she might harm the Mazdans, and she might figure out how to get the repository out before we even get there."

"Daniel, are you sure that this brain-sucker thingy is so important?"

"I hardly believe that the Ancients would choose to build the Tower, and then go through the trouble of depositing a device housing the repository here without a good reason."

"But do you think that the information is _that_ important?"

"I don't know, Jack, I've never had it in _my_ head. Did you think it was important when it was in _yours_?"

"What if it's the Ancient equivalent of the collected works of Matt Groening?"

"Well, then, Jack, to _you_ that would qualify as important, now, wouldn't it?"

"At least it would be more interesting than—'Hey guys, there's about three thousand pages of alien text. Do you want it in chronological order, or order of most important verb phrase?'"

"So now you're mocking me?"

"Yes, Daniel, I mock you."

Sam instantly reverted to wishing for clicking. She could have shot them, but that would have scared the little people.

"So help me guys, I've had a crappy enough day as it is—do you _always_ have to act like children? If the two of you don't grow up a little bit, so help me I'm going to spank you and send you to your rooms."

Teal'c quickly hid a smile behind his staff weapon. Daniel and Jack both stared at her as if she'd sprouted a third boob.

Jack, of course, _had_ to actually answer her. "Promise?"

----OOOOOOO----

Forty five minutes later, they had finally reached the outer southern edge of the farmlands. The road had wound around the town for a while before finally entering the agrarian areas outside of Mazd's center. Sam led the four of them, hiking at a bruising pace. She knew that Daniel and the Colonel trailed behind her on purpose. She could hear them whispering.

She wasn't sure if they could handle the pace for the full forty clicks—she knew the Colonel's knees would start to complain sooner rather than later. With each stride, she counted. She had heard once that counting helped to lessen stress and build the patience necessary to deal with difficult people. Some expert she'd seen on Oprah had touted the method for mothers of small children. Sam figured that she qualified.

She was up to two thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six. She wasn't feeling it yet.

"Hey, Sam, wait up."

She slowed her pace while Daniel jogged up next to her.

"So, did you lose?"

"Did I lose?"

"What was it, Ink-a Dink, or Rock, Paper, Scissors?"

Daniel had the grace to look sheepish. "Teal'c chose a number between one and ten. I chose six. It was five."

"What number did the Colonel choose?"

"Eleven."

"Of course he did." She muttered more than spoke.

They walked steadily for several long moments before Daniel spoke again. "I'm a little concerned about you."

She sighed, "I know."

"I mean. You're the steady one. You're the one that we all rely on to keep things grounded and figure things out. Having you—uh," he faltered and resorted to gesturing inanely in front of him.

"Witchy?" Sam supplied—perhaps a little too easily.

"Witchy. Having you witchy is a little unusual."

"Oh, come on, haven't you all tried to figure out exactly where in my cycle I am? Don't you guess that it's all just hormonal and in another week I'll be fine?"

"We haven't discussed that sort of thing. I mean, ewww—no."

"I can raise my eyebrow skeptically, too, Daniel, see?" And she showed him.

"No, Sam, this is different." Daniel reached out and tugged at her sleeve. "This is not normal."

"So you're saying I have a normal witchy and an abnormal witchy?"

"Why do women do that? Turn things inside out? Guys seriously can't win for losing. Even Sha're did that to me, and believe me, it translates exactly the same way in Abydonian."

Sam smiled. "Look, Daniel. I know. And I appreciate your concern—and your friendship. I really do. I'm just a little tired of being everyone's Mommy."

"I don't think you're my mo—Whoa."

----OOOOOOO----

The farmland hadn't reached as far as they had originally thought. They had passed maybe three or four farmsteads before climbing a steep hill, at whose top the farms abruptly ended.

Instead of neat little farms and fields, they now faced an entire valley filled with flowers. Bright yellow flowers as far as the eye could see.

Daniel, of course, instantly sneezed.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

While Daniel self-medicated (he always brought along extra antihistamines) Sam ventured down the hill into the valley.

The flowers appeared to be some sort of sunflower—huge blossoms on thick stems about five feet high. Almost unnaturally yellow, they lacked the brown seedy centers of Earth sunflowers. Instead, the petals continued in concentric circles until culminating in a center thick with petals and long stamen that were copiously coated with pollen.

She thought they were rather pretty.

She felt the Colonel behind her before she heard him. "What's with the daisies?"

"They appear to be more like sunflowers, sir."

"Don't sunflowers have seeds in the middle? These just have those antennae things."

"Stamen, sir."

"Oh." He'd put on his sunglasses and his hat shadowed his face. He glanced up behind him to where Daniel and Teal'c were surveying the area from atop the rise. After a minute he spoke softly. "So, uh, Carter. You okay?"

Sam ducked her head. "I guess so."

"Now, see, that's not really an answer, now, is it? I want a real answer. Are you okay? Are_ we_ okay?"

Sam closed her eyes briefly. She gathered in a strengthening breath. "I'm just going through a rough patch, sir. I'll be okay."

"And the 'we' part?"

"_I__s_ there a 'we' part?"

He moved closer to her, and their arms brushed. "You're the one who wanted to leave it in the room, Major."

"I can't pretend that I wouldn't like things to be—"

"Different?"

"Easier."

He nudged her gently with his shoulder. She looked up at him sideways. He'd removed the sunglasses. Between the brims of her hat and his, there seemed to be an intimacy completely incongruent with the huge, expansive field around them.

"Yeah." The Colonel finally sighed, "Me too."

He glanced again at Daniel and Teal'c, and, satisfied that their attentions were occupied elsewhere, he fitted his arm around her shoulder for a brief, sideways hug. She felt his cheek against her crown.

Then he abruptly disengaged, and jogged back up the hill towards the others.

Sam felt as she always did in moments like these.

As if Dorothy's tornado had just passed through her heart.

----OOOOOOO----

Halfway through the field, Sam had relinquished point to Teal'c. The big Jaffa looked comically out of place in a field of flowers—like the proverbial Brahman in a Limoges showroom.

The sun was setting in the west—bathing the field in an orange glow that Sam realized came from the pollen in the air. Sam walked between O'Neill and Daniel.

"So what do you think we should expect with this sister?" Sam liked being prepared.

"I can't imagine she'll be very pleased with current events." Daniel said.

"The villagers said that the dead sister had been holding a scepter of some sort at the time she died."

"The Wand of Light." Jack supplied.

"I briefly recall seeing it," Daniel continued, "It was gold, with a red-colored stone in the tip. It glowed."

"What exactly happened anyway? How did she get you all kneeling and unable to protect yourselves?"

The Colonel made a sound that reminded Sam of a diesel engine starting up. "She was waiting for us. The minute we stepped through she was right there with that wand. She pointed it at us like the snake-heads do with the hand devices and I don't remember much after that."

"It was unpleasantly uncomfortable." Teal'c added.

"It hurt like hell is what it did." The Colonel shifted his weapon in his hands. "And she knew someone was coming through the 'Gate. I don't know who she was waiting for—but she had a bug up her butt about something."

"Why was she standing so close to the 'Gate when it engaged?"

Daniel and O'Neill exchanged a look. They both shrugged.

"Who knows." Daniel said. "She had the Mazdans frozen already, and after she forced us down, she started talking—you know how the Goa'uld are. Bragging is their favorite thing to do."

"She was monologuing." This again from Teal'c. "As do the villains in most of Colonel O'Neill's illustrated novels."

Sam couldn't help but grin.

"Major?" O'Neill glanced sideways at her. "Is there something funny about that?"

"Just wondering which villain it is that monologues to Archie and Jughead, sir."

Even with his glasses on, Sam could see his eyes narrow.

"_Anyway_," the Colonel dragged out the word, "She was saying things like she would get it. It would be hers. The obelisk had foretold it. Yada yada yada, she would make us pay. You know—the basic stuff."

Daniel stopped suddenly. "That's right—Jack, she was talking about an Ancient obelisk—on which was written a prophecy about the eventual ruler of Mazd."

"Did the Ancients usually prophesy? I thought they were more interested in preserving their history than making guesses as to the future."

"All I remember is that she said that the ruler had to have what she referred to as the 'Three'." Daniel's hand motioned more widely the more excited he got. Sam found herself moving closer to the Colonel. Not that she minded much.

"She said that she'd found two of the devices, but she needed the third to claim her throne."

"So the jig is up. The sister can't claim this throne."

"Why do you say that, sir?"

Daniel answered instead. "Because Sam, you destroyed the Wand upon 'Gating through to Mazd. It would have been destroyed in the matter stream when the event horizon opened. Even if this sister found the third item, there are only two items remaining."

Teal'c had stopped in the middle of the road.

"One thing I don't get, though," the Colonel caught up to Teal'c and stopped, too. He took his sunglasses off in the waning light and stowed them in their customary place. "If these two are Goa'uld. Where are their Jaffa?"

"They do usually travel with a contingent."

"Perhaps they are only minor Goa'uld who are now attempting to gain more power by means of accumulating Ancient devices." Teal'c spoke while still surveying the surrounding area.

"Like your old boss, Apophis, Teal'c."

"Indeed."

There was a brief silence before Sam spoke again. "Should we find a place to camp?"

"Yeah," O'Neill nodded. "From up there it looked like there was a small stream running through here—It shouldn't be too far from the road. Teal'c and Carter, you survey the area and check for anything that might be dangerous, and Daniel and I will find out if there is a place to camp near that stream."

----OOOOOOO----

Sam had the first watch—since she hadn't been frozen or assailed by the Wand of Light. The others had eaten their MREs and then hit the hay, while Teal'c sat off a few extra feet from the fire, in an easy state of kelnorim.

Several hours into the watch, she shifted slightly in her post. The silence around them was profound. Even the noise from the lively stream was muffled by the velvety petals of the flowers.

A large, hazy moon hung low on the horizon. When she stood, she could see over the bobbing heads of the flowers to where the glow lit fields around her. It was as if the place were mythical—it didn't seem real. It almost seemed to enchant her. In fact, she was finding herself a little woozy—she didn't know if that was from the crazy events of the day or if she was just tired. But when she reached out to touch the petals of a nearby flower, she found that she couldn't quite get her fingers to do what she wanted them to.

A sudden rushing filled her ears. She felt overwhelmingly disoriented. Forcing herself to turn, she stumbled forward until she fell to her knees next to the sleeping Colonel.

"Sir—I. . ."

"What is it, Major?" The Colonel was instantly awake. He sat up just as Sam fell sideways into his lap.

"Major—Carter!" O'Neill tried to shake his second in command awake. "Sam!"

Sam muttered something unintelligible. She lay sprawled across him—complete deadweight.

"Daniel—Teal'c—a little help here!" Jack struggled with her. "Daniel!"

But there was no answer. He found his strength waning. Somehow, he just couldn't get a grip on Sam—she seemed to elude his hands. A sudden rushing in his ears overcame him, and he frantically looked around, sure that the stream had turned into a torrent and was cresting its banks in full flood. But the ground was pulling him back down, and he nearly panicked, thinking he would drown.

As he succumbed to the darkness, he happened to see a glint of metal above him. He knew that glint—Teal'c had something like that on his face, too, didn't he? Then there was another brief flash, and he looked up to see two more faces staring down at him.

The sisters' Jaffa.

Somewhere in the muddle that had become of his brain, he had the presence of mind to tell them to leave Sam alone—to take him—Colonel O'Neill—to the remaining sister, and let his team go.

What the Jaffa heard him say, however, was, "D'oh."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Through the years, Jack had become quite the connoisseur of Goa'uld prisons. He'd seen them all—dungeons and cages and towers and converted storage rooms. He'd even been imprisoned once in a mud hut—but that might have been in Iraq.

With the haziness still coursing through his brain, it was tough to remember.

He'd peeped open one eye halfway and glanced at his surroundings several minutes ago, but even with that cursory recon he'd decided that he kinda liked this prison.

For one thing, it was clean. The walls were a light gray stone and covered in symbols that Daniel would probably tell him were Ancient. Windows in two walls let in enough light that he knew dawn had broken a long time ago. He lay on the floor, but wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, he felt rather cozy and warm. He sighed and burrowed into the warmth.

"Uh, Jack?"

"Go back to sleep, Daniel."

"I would, but you're kind of crushing me."

Both of O'Neill's eyes opened at once. He was half-lying on top of Daniel, his head cushioned on the other man's abdomen.

They sat up so quickly that they whacked their heads together.

"Ow—Jack!"

"Daniel—watch where you're putting that giant head of yours."

But Jack was reasonably sure that the collision wasn't the cause of the massive headache now coursing around upstairs. "Aaacht." He lifted one finger in a warning to Daniel to shut up when the younger man started to say something.

After several long moments, the pain began to subside. He could almost open his eyes again without wanting to curse. He shut them again. It was the worst hang over _ever_.

"Can I talk yet?" Daniel whispered.

"Where's Teal'c and Carter?"

"I can see Teal'c. I'm not sure if he's in a state of kelnorim or if he's just unconscious. My guess would be unconscious."

"Carter?"

"I don't see her."

Jack's eyes did open at that. The prison was actually one room divided into two cells. The cells, separated by a force shield of some sort, filled only of a portion of a much larger room. A door on one end stood unguarded, as did the two windows. Teal'c lay in the other cell, still. There was no sign of Sam.

"What happened back there?"

Daniel shrugged. "I don't know—all I remember is going to sleep. I woke up here."

"There were Jaffa. Sam collapsed on top of me, and then there were Jaffa."

"Why did Sam fall? Was she injured?"

"I think she fainted."

"She was overcome by the pollen in the flowers." Teal'c wasn't unconscious after all. "They contained a toxin of some sort that affected all of your ability to function."

"Ah." O'Neill nodded. "So what got to you?"

"One of the men had a Zat'ni'katel."

"That would explain things." Daniel said, "Whose Jaffa were they?"

"I was not able to discern to which Goa'uld they belonged. They kept to the darkness."

O'Neill stood and crossed to the point in his cell closest to the door. "Hey! Jaffa! Kree!" He looked to where Teal'c sat, one eyebrow raised, and shrugged.

"Hey! We're awake in here and would very much like to ask you where our friend is!" Daniel joined him at the shield.

"Why don't you invite them to tea, Danny?" Jack lifted his hand to the force shield, and was delivered a slight shock. "I hate these force field things—makes it hard to rattle the bars."

But the door opened before Jack could yell again. Into the room glided a woman of startling beauty. She appeared to be young—no more than twenty five. Long black hair floated around her shoulders and she appraised the three men with clear green eyes.

"We wonder which one of you it is." Her melodic voice wafted towards them softly. Approaching the force shield, she cocked her head to one side and studied Teal'c. "You are—the brave."

She moved on to where Daniel and Jack stood. Her smile was both beguiling and terrifying. "And the wise, and the beloved. All three in one. And one out of three."

She took a step back and surveyed the three of them again. "Oh yes, We can see why she must have you."

"Uh—Ma'am?" Jack began. But when she turned to face him, he briefly faltered. He found it hard to think with that emerald gaze full force upon him. He forced himself to concentrate on Carter. "Uh—where is our friend?"

"She is with us. She is well. She seeks for you, but We do not think We will give you to her just yet."

"Where is she?"

"Elsewhere than here." Was the simple reply, "She will come to no harm. She is only required to perform a favor for the Oracle."

"You are not Goa'uld." Teal'c stood and approached the woman.

"No. We are fully our own. We share, but there are two where once was only one. _She_ made the necessity. _She_ caused the meld."

"She who?" Daniel asked. "Who is _she_?"

"Your Samantha." She smiled at Daniel. Then she turned to O'Neill, "And _your_ Carter, and your Major Carter." This last was aimed at Teal'c.

"If you're not Goa'uld," Daniel hesitated for the barest moment before continuing, "Then who are you?"

"There are those of power who are not Goa'uld, Daniel Jackson." The woman explained, "Do we not all search for answers and seek to control the world around us? We know that you search for many things, Daniel Jackson. We know that you search for truth, and that you, Jack O'Neill, yearn for absolution. The Jaffa Teal'c desires freedom, and the opportunity to fight for such."

"And you?" Daniel prompted, "What is it that you want?"

"We seek The Three."

"But one of the three was destroyed."

"No, The Three are all present. The Oracle has said as such."

"Daniel, what the hell is she talking about?"

Daniel shook his head, his eyes wide with confusion. "I have no idea."

"And so it shall be until the Oracle confirms." The woman turned towards the door.

She paused at the threshold and turned halfway back towards them. "Do not fret for Samantha Carter," she said with a sad smile, "she will find the way to do that which must be done.'

"And what exactly is that?" Jack called after her.

The woman hesitated briefly before answering. "She will return the Golden Shoes. She will restore the Wand of Light. She will Fill the Void."

"Or what—"

"Or she will become one with Us."

----OOOOOOO----

Sam woke in a resplendent room. She lay on a wide bed in the middle of a round chamber. Her head ached, but it wasn't overwhelming. She took a quick physical inventory, and found herself to be healthy and uninjured other than the headache. Long multicolored silk panels formed a canopy around the head of the bed, and soft down pillows cushioned her on all sides. She had been covered with a silk blanket with tufted edges.

Throwing back the blanket, she looked down to find her BDUs had been exchanged with a dress. She lifted one foot and saw that she still wore the Golden shoes. Sitting up, Sam threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood. The room was mammoth. Panels matching the silk on the bed draped the four large windows, and everywhere she looked she saw luxurious touches—a carved wooden rocking chair with a tapestry cushion, a stone hearth and fireplace that Sam just knew she could stand in upright, a full length stand mirror, a tapestry covered sofa and matching ottoman. She found her BDUs folded neatly and stacked on a dresser near the sofa. On the floor next to the dresser sat her pack and her weapon, seemingly untouched.

Crossing to the mirror, she took a quick glimpse, but then stared at herself in shock. She actually looked like a girl. The dress was low cut at the bodice and fit neatly to the drop waist, where it flared slightly to the floor. The blue of the fabric was a shade or two darker than her eyes. A gold chain circled her hips, and the ends of the belt dangled down one thigh. The fabric of the dress had been embroidered with hundreds of tiny yellow flowers. She was positive that if she looked closer, she would find that they were sunflowers.

Her short cropped hair accentuated the size of her eyes, the length of her neck, and the neat, trim lines of her shoulders. She didn't recognize the person in the mirror. For a brief hysterical moment, she thought that the mirror might be one of the alternate universe variety. But no—she was sure that this was real.

And it was a nightmare. She'd been sublimating this—the need to be _this_ again. The need for more in her life.

If she were honest, she'd been denying this since last Christmas, when she'd ventured to spend the holiday with Mark and his family in San Diego. Mark's wife, Lucy, had just had their third child, a girl. Seeing them—the family unit, the home that Mark and Lucy had built, had reminded Sam of all she didn't—and couldn't have.

Normally, Sam was content to be the tomboy and soldier she'd become. She had purposefully ignored the 'girl' in her over the years in order to deal with the events that had consumed her life lately. But she wondered if she'd given up too much.

She wondered if, in giving up most of her life and some of her dreams in the service of her country and her world, she had given up too large a part of her soul.

She smoothed her hands down the front of the dress. She tried not to notice that they were shaking.

----OOOOOOO----

A noise behind her startled her out of her reverie. She whirled to see the door open behind her. In swept a dark haired woman some years younger than Sam herself. Her bold green eyes took an appraising look at Sam, and seemed to approve.

"Your friends are well. They will wait for you to complete your mission."

"Who are you? Where are we?" Sam squared her shoulders. "And my mission is with them. They're my team."

"Samantha Carter," mused the woman. "Your mission is here. With Us. You must unite The Three."

"I tried," she said, sticking one foot out from under her hem. "I couldn't get them off. And I think that uniting The Three will be difficult. The Wand was destroyed."

"The Wand cannot be destroyed." The woman smiled thinly. "It is here. With Us."

"Hey-I don't know what you're talking about, but the Wand was destroyed by the matter stream when I 'Gated through to Mazd. How else to do you think I got the shoes? Your sister was—"

"Our sister is one with us. You will deliver to us the Wand and the Shoes and you will Fill the Void."

Frustrated, Sam shook her head and took a step forward. "The Wand is gone, and I can't get the shoes off my feet, and I have no idea what Void you're talking about, let alone how to Fill it. Now, if you don't mind, I'll change back into my own clothes and go find my team, and we will be on our way."

"We think not, Samantha Carter. The Three will stay. You shall go and consult the Oracle. The Oracle will aid you in your mission."

"And what if I can't complete your mission? What if I can't unite the Three? What if I can't Fill this Void?"

The woman's face suddenly morphed. With a jerk, the beautiful mask fell away to reveal glowing jade skin, a sharp, long nose, and thin lips bared over rows of razor-like teeth.

Sam only caught a glimpse of a forked tongue before the creature hissed her answer.

"Then you shall die."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Thwack. Flurrrr. Thwack. Flurrrr. Thwack. Flurrrr.

Daniel glanced across the cell and pursed his lips. Sighing, he turned back to his wall.

Thwack. Flurrrrr. Thwack. Flurrrr.

"You know," he said, without looking at Jack. "I'm trying to translate something here."

Thwack. Flurrrr. Thwack.

"When are you _not_ trying to translate something?" Jack answered, without looking back at Daniel.

Flurrrr. Thwack.

"And besides," Jack swiveled his wrist, showing Daniel, "This is keeping me limber—in fighting mode, you know—so we can escape, should the opportunity arise."

"I still can't believe they let you keep that."

"It's a toy, Daniel."

"It's annoying, Jack."

Flurrrr. Thwack. Flurrrr. Thwack.

"So very, very, very annoying." Daniel muttered—very much _not_ under his breath.

Flurrrr. Thwack. Flurrrr. Thwack.

"Hey, T?

"Yes, O'Neill?" Teal'c sat, unmoving, eyes closed, in the adjacent cell.

"Did you get the idea that these 'Three' that the _non_-Goa'uld was talking about didn't have anything to do with the shoes or the wand?"

"Indeed." Teal'c gave a slight nod, but did not open his eyes.

"What do you think that they are?"

Flurrrr. Thwack.

Daniel stopped reading the wall for a minute and turned back towards Jack. "Why don't you think that they have anything to do with the wand and shoes, Jack."

"Because," Sam said from the doorway. "They have to do with you."

The rest of SG-1 immediately stood and crossed their cells to where Sam stood at the front of the room.

"Sam!"

"Hi, guys," She smiled, "Hi. Sir."

Jack just stared back at her. After a moment, he was able to smile back—almost. She was in a dress. A really blue, really girly dress—and he could see her—oh damn—and so much skin—he licked his lips and sighed.

So it was up to Daniel to ask, "Where have you been, Sam?"

"I got put in a different room."

"Have you seen anyone else? Any guards around, or other people?"

"No—just the woman who I'm assuming is the sister."

"And she talked about what mission she wanted you to complete here?" Daniel pushed his glasses up higher on his nose.

"Yeah—did she come talk to you too?"

"We got a visit."

"And she discussed all this with you

"A bit of it, Sam. She didn't tell us everything."

"The woman—for want of a better word—and I had a little chat about it too, Sir. She told me that I have to do an errand of some sort for the Oracle. Now, I can only venture to assume that this Oracle must be the Ancient device—there really isn't another explanation that I can think of. I took the opportunity to look around while I was looking for the three of you, and all I found were empty rooms, except for the one that I ended up in, and then the room where the Ancient device is, and–what?"

She'd been searching the walls for a switch for the force field, when she'd gradually become aware that she was talking into silence. She turned to look at them. "What's wrong?"

Finally able to function again, the Colonel let his Yo-Yo fly. _Flurrrr_. Once at the end of its string, it snapped back up into Jack's big hand. _Thwack_. But his eyes never left his second in command. "Major Carter."

"Yes, sir?"

"Why aren't you wearing SGC regulation BDUs?"

Sam noticed that he was fidgety. He always played with something when he was thinking or disturbed. That was why they never had mission planning meetings in her lab. Something always ended up broken.

She had a good idea what was making him fidgety this time.

"Oh. This. Well." Carter smiled wanly and glanced down at the blue gown. "I woke up in it. I had the conversation with the snake lady—"

"Snake Lady?" Daniel asked, eyebrows practically drifting into this hairline.

"Long story—Snake Lady says I have a job to do, something about Uniting the Three and Consulting the Oracle. Oh, and then I have to deliver the Shoes and Wand back to Snake Lady and then Fill the Void."

"In that order?" Jack wasn't looking anywhere near her eyes. There were _way_ too many other interesting things to examine.

"I don't think so." Sam turned back towards the wall. "And unless I'm mistaken, this is—" she depressed a tiny engraving the wall, "the switch."

With a tiny hum, the force shield blipped once, and then disappeared.

"And what could be the reason why Colonel O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, and myself would be involved with such concerns?"

"I don't know." Sam nodded towards Daniel. "But you said that you had translated something?"

"Yes, I did." Daniel nodded, and then pointed to some carvings on the wall next to the window. "These writings seem to be a history of sorts—"

"Of sorts?" Jack snorted. "It's either history or it isn't."

"Unless the history hasn't happened yet." He crossed back to the engravings he'd mentioned. "This set here seems to be more along the lines of what is _going_ to happen, rather than what has _already_ happened."

"Prophecy. You're talking about prophecy." Sam followed him back to the window, her skirts swishing slightly.

"Well, of course, there isn't any proof that people can really foretell the future, but the tense structure of the phrasing here is future, rather than past."

"I wonder why." Sam regarded the writings with a thoughtful look. "What exactly does it say?"

Daniel ran a finger along the wall until he found the place he wanted. "She will step through the Ring of Light," he read out loud, "She who will steal away with time and power from the Place of Innocence. With the United Three she will Fill the Void of soul. The Oracle will grant answer and wisdom. Time and Power will surge once more before the Golden Witch has completed her concern, and returned them to the Consciousness."

Daniel paused. "Any of this making sense to you?"

Sam shook her head. "Not yet."

"I think I know what Time and Power mean." Jack spoke from his point near the door.

Sam and Daniel turned to him. "What would that be, Jack?

"Time—the shoes—the other lady used the shoes to screw with time, and Power—she was doing something with the wand thingy. Using power—you know—like those hand devices."

"Time and Power." Sam glanced back at Daniel. She cocked her head at him. "That would actually fit."

"You don't need to sound quite so surprised, Major."

"Is there more, Daniel?"

"Uh—yeah—a few mentions of grave consequence if the Golden Witch doesn't fulfill her obligations, and then of course, the requisite 'if this is not accomplished, you will die'—stuff."

"Death on top of grave consequences? Wow. Sucks to be us." Jack looked over at Teal'c, who had joined him at the front of the room.

"Major Carter," the Jaffa intoned.

"Yes, Teal'c?"

"In what way does this prophecy concern Daniel Jackson, Colonel O'Neill and myself?"

"Well—uniting the Three—Snake Lady said that the Three were already here. Since there's nothing else here except the Ancient Device—and there's only one of those—I figure that the Three must mean you."

"And how are we to be united?"

"I don't know, Teal'c." Sam glanced at the three men in turn. "Maybe that's something we won't know until we get up there to the Oracle."

"Sam—about the—not that you don't look great—but about the dress?" Daniel stepped forward, out of what had been their cell. Sam followed him away from the wall and towards the Colonel and Teal'c. His eyebrows, more than his words, asked the question.

"I can't get it off." She shrugged weakly. "There's no zipper or buttons or opening that I can see. I tried."

"Couldn't you have asked the Snake Lady?"

She grinned at that. "She wasn't helpful—gave me a lot of cryptic clues as to what I had to do, but when I told her that I still wasn't quite sure what to do, she morphed somehow—her skin went all green, and her tongue was forked. Hence—"

Daniel finished for her. "Snake Lady."

"Snake Lady. Sam affirmed. "Besides—we weren't really close. I wasn't going to ask for her help in getting undressed."

The Colonel tried to ignore those images as he moved closer to them. "So, now what?"

"I suggest that we consult the Oracle first." Daniel said, "I have been translating these writings in here—"

"I've been Yo-Yo-ing." Jack showed her. Flurrrr. Thwack.

Sam smiled, but Daniel rolled his eyes. "—And the writings do talk about the Oracle—but they also mention the shoes and wand."

"They do? That's surprising. I thought that these devices were brought here by Snake Lady and her sister."

"Apparently they're Ancient in origin. Do you still have them on?"

Sam lifted her hem and stuck a foot out. "Right here."

"Great—hold that for a minute." Daniel knelt and started studying the shoe more closely. "See? Right here. On the toe. There are tiny engravings. I can't really read them—I'd need my magnifiers."

"All of your gear is in the room with the Ancient device."

"You found our gear?" The Colonel stowed his Yo-Yo in his pocket.

"Yes, sir."

"And you didn't bring me my weapon?" O'Neill managed to pull his gaze away from Sam's exposed calf and ankle.

"Well, sir, there don't seem to be any threats around that I can see. I haven't run into anyone but you three since Snake Lady and I had our little talk." She lifted the hem of her dress even higher and showed him her side arm, which she'd strapped to her thigh. "If it makes you feel better, you can carry my side arm."

But O'Neill's mouth had gone completely cottony, and he couldn't have answered if he'd tried.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Sir, do you want it or not?" Carter held out the .45.

"Give it." Jack said gruffly, holding out his hand. Carter slapped the butt of the weapon into it. He tried, and failed, not to notice that the metal was really, really warm. He function checked it, chambered a round, and then stuffed it into the back waistband of his pants.

"Now what?"

"Well, sir, I've been thinking about it."

"Of course you have, Major."

"I've been thinking about it," Sam began again, "And I think that we have two options. We could leave here and head back to the 'Gate."

"Bring in reinforcements and hazardous materials suits." Daniel was nodding his agreement.

"Suits?" O'Neill had already crossed to the door and peered out into the hallway.

"For the flowers. They knocked us out. I'm assuming some sort of personal air filtration system would be needed to get us back through the field once we returned."

"Then how do we get back to the 'Gate in the first place if we have to go through the flowers again?"

Daniel's mouth opened, and then closed, and then formed a little 'o'. "I hadn't thought of that."

"We could traverse around the other side of the mountains. Perhaps there is no toxic flora on that side of the continent."

"That would take days—even weeks, T. UAV measurements showed that the continent is roughly the size of Guam back on Earth." O'Neill said. "And this is the only civilization that the cameras picked up."

Sam spoke up again. "That brings us to the other option. We could try to fulfill the demands of Snake Lady and get out that way."

"At least we'd have a shot at the Ancient repository, which is why we're here in the first place." Daniel shrugged. "I'm just a little concerned about the role that Sam would have to play there."

"And what you three have to do with it, too." Sam said, "What with needing to be united and all."

Jack studied his three team mates in turn. Finally he took one last look out the door and sighed. "Well, we're not getting through those flowers without help. I figure we may as well try to download the Ancient crapola."

"Repository of knowledge." Daniel corrected.

"Whatever." Jack said with a lazy wave of his hand. "Besides, Carter, you said that our gear was up there. Let's go get it. I hate breaking in new packs."

They joined him at the doorway. "Carter, stay behind me. Daniel, follow close, and Teal'c, you watch our six."

He glanced over his shoulder at them and then back out into the hall. Palming the weapon from the small of his back, he made sure the safety was off. "All right, campers," he said.

"To Oz."

----OOOOOOO----

The Colonel led them down a straight hall that led them directly to what looked like a—

"A ring platform." Sam stepped into the center of the transporter.

"It makes sense—I mean this place was built by the Ancients. I mean, what did we expect, an elevator?" Daniel immediately started searching the walls for the controls.

"I just hate these things. Why couldn't they have put a mark on the ground where you're supposed to stand? Can you imagine the damage if you stood with your feet in the wrong place?"

"I imagine that they have safeguards in place for that circumstance, Colonel. Our study of them has shown them to be remarkably versatile pieces of technology. Dr. Lee says that—"

"He that little bald guy always following you around the lab?"

"Yes, sir."

"He smells funny and always takes the last piece of pie."

"Sam, where are the controls?"

But Teal'c had found, and was already perusing, the panel. He keyed in a sequence. "We should take position." He nudged O'Neill a few inches to the right of where he'd been standing.

"See now," O'Neill said, "It should tell us where—"

But he'd already been dematerialized.

----OOOOOOO----

They were transported to what was obviously the top of the Tower.

The ring platform lay directly between the entrances to two rooms. To the north was a large, airy room, while the southern room was dark and much smaller.

"Which one, Carter?"

"I stowed my gear in the northern room, sir."

Performing a cursory check on the room, O'Neill entered, looked around a bit, and let out a low whistle. "Someone's been trading spaces."

The room was unlike any other Ancient room they had seen to date. Instead of gray, the walls were smooth, gleaming, white stone. Instead of writings etched into the walls, the white surface was covered in gold. The Ancient device that they had encountered before was black and slightly crustacean in appearance. The device in this room was gold. Directly in front of the device stood a small dais made of three interconnected rings, and a pulpit in the center.

"Your gear is over there beyond that tapestry." Sam pointed to a spot on the far side of the room.

It only took a few minutes for Teal'c and the Colonel to check and then redistribute the packs. Nothing in them was missing, and nothing had been added to them that they could tell. Sam's gear was there, too. She had left it when she'd gone looking for the men.

Daniel immediately crossed to the nearest wall to study the writings. "These look like a history of the Tower here."

Jack followed the writing from one side of the wall to the other. "While we do some light recon, why don't you try to figure out what it's saying, Daniel. Carter—take watch."

Jack walked across the room towards Teal'c. He motioned for Carter to keep an eye on the ring platform, and he and Teal'c set off to make a circuit of the other Tower room. The ring platform stood directly in the entry way of the tower room, while beyond lay the other, smaller room. Inside, another Ancient repository device gleamed on the wall. O'Neill stayed far away from the ring mosaic on the floor of the room. The last time he'd crossed through one of those he'd ended up speaking strange languages and building Carter-ish things.

"Let's get the generator and set up so that Carter can do the interface she needs to do."

"Certainly, Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c agreed.

Emerging from the smaller room, O'Neill crossed the ring platform again and stopped in front of his second in command. "Go hook it up. Let's get as much as we can while we can. I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir." Carter turned and followed the Colonel in the direction of their gear.

As she passed Daniel, he reached out and grabbed hold of her skirt. "Sam—you gotta—wow."

"History? Or Prophecy?" Sam joined him at the wall. "Is it a continuation of the stuff that was written in the room where you were being held?"

"No," Daniel shook his head while rapidly scanning the writing, his finger tracing along the wall as he read. "It doesn't look like prophecy, or whatever that was—but it's still—oh, crap."

"What?" Sam asked.

"What?" Jack said at the same time. Lovingly cradling his P-90, he joined Daniel and Sam at the wall.

"Well. This could be a pickle."

"What?" Jack said.

But Daniel, engrossed in his reading, ignored him. He soon was bent almost double studying text written near the floor.

It took a minute and fifty-eight seconds for Jack to nudge Daniel with the business end of the weapon. "Oh, Danny boy."

"Well. Yes." Daniel straightened. "This could be a vote towards going back through the flowers."

"Daniel?"

"Jack?"

"Daniel?"

"Jack, perhaps this would be best discussed later." His eyes darted towards Sam, and then narrowed in an obvious manner.

Sam sighed and shifted her stance, placing both hands on her hips. "Daniel?"

"Wow—when you say it that way, you sound just like—" he pointed cautiously at the man with the gun. But then he decided he didn't want to die, and changed the subject.

"Apparently these Ancients had grown to such a large population on this planet that they decided to take measures to eliminate the overage."

"Of people?"

"Yes—they considered additional people to be unnecessary. Additional _consciousnesses_, no. Just the _physical_ part of the people."

"So they were into Zero population? Or was this a genetic engineering kind of thing?" Jack leaned forward slightly and peered at the wall. "You know, like eugenics?"

Daniel and Sam both stared at him as if he'd quoted Hawking's "Brief History of Time".

"What?" Somehow he always managed to look ingenuous. "Methinks perhaps you two eggheads underestimate the size of _my_ yolk."

Carter smiled then. A real smile—a BIG smile—the kind that always made Jack want picket fences and swing sets and a set of plastic plates in with the china. Shoving the thought away for later he reiterated his question. "So? Zero Population or Eugenics?"

"Neither, Jack, they decided to let technology help. They figured out a way to merge people."

"Do what? _Merge_ people?" Sam glanced at the dais, and then back at the wall. "How?"

"_Why_?" Jack

"They understood the value of the human soul—the knowledge and experience involved in one person's psyche, and so they decided to keep that part, and just dispense with multiple bodies."

"Kind of like uploading CDs into your computer and then putting them onto your iPod." O'Neill nodded. "All the music, but only one device."

"Right." Daniel said, "Here it talks about how they figured what the optimal number of souls per body would be, and here are the qualifications for who should be combined—'Three shall become one. Passion, Wisdom, and Strength, join and meld, for the betterment of all.' I think that means that they theorized that three people should share one host body, and that the three people should exhibit different qualities in strength. These three qualities, passion, wisdom, and strength—they thought they combined into the ideal person."

"So they would have found compatible people with different fortes, and melded them into one host body." Sam wrinkled her brow. "I wonder how they did this—and how they chose which body to use."

"Presumably the most physically appealing or perfect of the three."

O'Neill was studying his feet. "The wise, the strong, and the beloved."

"What was that?" Daniel looked over to where Jack was still staring at the floor. "What do you mean?"

"The wise, the strong, and the beloved. That's what that woman said when she came into the room. She looked at Daniel and said, 'wise', Teal'c was 'strong', and I was the other thing."

"The beloved?" Daniel looked back at the wall.

"And then she said that she understood why she," he jerked his head towards Sam, "Must have us all."

Sam eyes widened into impossible pools of blue. "She wants me to Unite the Three."

"Me, Jack, and Teal'c."

"Into one body."

Sam's gaze flew between the three men. She shook her head once, and then again, and then ran a shaky hand through her hair.

"Holy Hannah."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"There is no way in hell I'm becoming one with Daniel. Teal'c, I could work with that—I have before—but I'd have to THINK so much! Gah!" The Colonel turned towards the Ancient dais. "I KNEW this mission would be a cluster—these Ancient things are WAY more trouble than they're worth!"

"Jack, calm down. I'm sure that there's a solution to this." Daniel continued reading at the wall. "Besides, we practically live in each other's packs anyhow."

"Hey—stop living in my package!"

"PACK, Jack, I said pack." Daniel stood on that. "I have no interest whatsoever in your package."

"What's wrong with my package?"

"Besides disuse?"

"Hey. _Watch_ it, geek—"

"I, for one, would not wish to be blended with any of you. I do not wish to offend you, but I do not think we would be compatible sharing a corporeal being." Teal'c interrupted them. They both looked over at him as his left eyebrow nearly touched the stratosphere. "Although at times I do wonder how you exist within yourselves."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack started pacing. Daniel wisely didn't elaborate on what Teal'c had said—he'd learned some time before that a _pacing_ Jack was a _mean_ Jack.

Sam had crossed the room again and quietly stopped in front of the gold device. She took a deep, cleansing breath—at least that's what her yoga instructor would have called it. But then her yoga instructor's biggest worry was students who farted during downward facing dog. She didn't have to worry about defending the Earth against evil dominant snake-like parasites.

"What do we have and what do we need?" She spoke only for herself. She had a group of cantankerous, difficult, childish men to deal with, gold shoes and a dress she couldn't get out of, and a quest she couldn't fulfill. She _needed_ ice cream.

But no, that wasn't quite what her survival instructor had meant. Sighing again, she looked at the golden device on the wall. What they had was a conundrum. What they needed was answers.

"The Oracle." Her voice soft—an entreaty.

She ventured closer to the device on the wall. Watching O'Neill being grabbed by the first one of these things they'd encountered had been terrifying. She had a healthy respect for the Ancients and their technology. She reached out and touched the cone shaped apparatus. It was smooth and slightly warm—like a clock that was always plugged in.

She stepped back, and studied the cone again, and then glanced down. There was no mosaic or sensor on the floor which would trigger the device to work. She leaned a little farther away from the mechanism, and waved a foot over the floor directly in front of the cone.

Nothing happened.

She stepped directly in front of the piece, but still nothing reached out and grabbed her head.

"Carter! Get away from that thing!"

"It's okay, sir, I don't think this is the repository of knowledge."

"Then what do you think it is?" Daniel joined her in front of the device.

Carter glanced sideways at him before taking a deep breath. "I think it's the Oracle."

"The what?" O'Neill came to stand on her other side. Sam noticed with an inner grin that he was ready to move—and quickly—if the device made any movements at all.

"I think it's the Oracle." She turned to face him. "Sir, the snake lady told me that I had to do several things. Unite the Three, return the shoes and the scepter, consult the Oracle, and Fill the Void."

"Heckuva list."

"Yes sir, it is." She paused, gathering her thoughts. She had a slight tendency towards stuttering when she thought too quickly. She tended to self-edit mid-statement—preparing mentally what she was about to say helped alleviate it. She wasn't sure it would help in this situation. It didn't. "I—I think that the Oracle is some sort of messenger—p—probably similar to the viking warrior hologram Thor used as his own representation on Cimmeria. I—I think this isn't the repository as much as it's a search engine of some sort—a way to find answers. An oracle is an answer giver."

"So let me get this straight. You think that this shiny head sucker is actually a head bl—I mean, putter-inner?"

Sam smiled in spite of herself. "Yes, sir, I do."

Jack threw a sideways look at Daniel, who took the hint and walked back to his wall. Teal'c deliberately turned his back.

"Are you sure?"

Sam shook her head. "No, sir."

"Can you think of any other options?"

Another shake. "But then, sir, with all due respect, you and Daniel haven't really been helpful in finding other options, either."

Jack smiled wryly. "I know. It's been that kind of a mission." He rested a hand on the weapon slung in front of him and assessed her for a long beat. "But then, you didn't start this one on a great note either, did you?"

"No, sir."

"Then we're even?"

Sam regarded him as he had her moments earlier. "Sir—I—I—don't know."

"Well, until you decide, let's call a truce. No more childish bickering from me and geek boy over there, and no more temper tantrums from a certain blonde" here he paused and with a single long finger pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. He lingered, tracing the soft outer edge. "Whose dress, by the way, should be illegal."

Sam instantly dropped her gaze, unable to trust herself. Just at the right moment—every once in a while—he would do just _exactly_ the right thing. And then she would fight herself to keep from pushing him up against a wall and doing things that _would_ just merit courts martial.

Damn.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"I know that you're into action, sir. But we really need to think this one through."

"Thinking, huh?" Jack wasn't sure that he was up to thinking just at the moment.

"We're missing something—I'm missing something."

"Two more people in your head?"

"Sir—"

O'Neill grinned and turned abruptly towards Daniel. "Okay, Daniel—Teal'c—Carter needs to confer."

"What about?" Daniel left the wall and approached them. Teal'c already stood nearby.

"What do we know? What do we have? What do we need?"

"But first of all, who is the enemy?" O'Neill shifted his weight onto one leg and used the other foot to trace an idle arc on the white stone floor in front of him.

"Are we sure that there is one, Jack?" Daniel held out his hands. "Are we really sure that snake lady is an enemy?"

"She threatened Carter, Daniel." The lazy motions of O'Neill's foot ceased.

"She's not a Goa'uld—perhaps she has a motivation that we don't know about. She hasn't hurt any of us."

"She threatened _Carter_, Daniel." Jack repeated. "That qualifies her as an enemy in my book."

"We are not certain that she is not Goa'uld." Teal'c stated. "All we know is that it was not immediately ascertainable whether she was, or not."

"Well, she does have some sort of stake here—she's the one that sent her people to bring us in from the Fields of Dandsa—"

"The what?"

"That's what the Mazdans called the field of flowers." Daniel supplied.

"Are we sure about that?"

"What, that the flowers were the Fields of Dandsa?"

"No, Daniel, that the snake lady sent the guys who Zatted Teal'c and brought us in."

Silence lay heavy as they all considered. Finally, Sam shook her head. "I don't think so. We can't be certain about that, but it does seem logical. I think that we can safely assume that they're working together."

"Okay, so snake lady and the burly guys are in cahoots."

"That's something I've always wondered. What exactly is a cahoot, and how does somebody get in one?"

"Daniel." Jack was in 'Colonel' mode.

"Right. Yes, I would concur with that conclusion—snake lady has to be in association somehow with burly guys." Daniel nodded. "So what do we know about her?"

"I am certain that she is not as she appears to be."

"Yeah, Teal'c, I kind of think the same thing." O'Neill fiddled with the sight on his weapon. "She didn't seem—right—to me."

"In what way?" Carter asked, "I mean, she appeared to be nothing more than a beautiful woman, until she got angry with me, and then the snake thing happened. The ability to morph like that isn't common—we've only run into a handful of races capable of it."

"The Nox." Jack immediately asserted.

"Could they morph? I thought they could just manipulate what was visible and what wasn't." Daniel's eyes narrowed in thought. "But there _were_ the Spirits of Tonane—you remember, from the Salish."

"The ones with the—" O'Neill put his hands up to his face with the fingers wiggling outward. "Things—"

"Gills?"

"Gills—or whatever—in their faces."

"They could definitely change their own appearance." Carter nodded. "Also, the aliens who took over the SGC—remember? They had a device that could imitate other people's bodies."

"Yeah, but they used a machine to make a copy. Did you see a machine here when you did recon, Carter?"

Sam shook her head. "No, sir."

"Do you think that snake lady actually morphed herself, or was it the product of some sort of a device?"

"I think that she morphed—but I can't completely say that there wasn't technology involved."

"Are you sure? I mean—absolutely certain." Daniel looked at her from over the rims of his glasses. "Isn't there any way to know this for sure?"

Sam considered, and then shook her head. "I don't think so. Not with the information that we currently have."

"So snake lady may or may not have the ability to change her appearance at will or possibly with the help of a technological doohickey." O'Neill rocked back on his heels. "_That's_ helpful."

"I do not believe it is, O'Neill."

"I was being ironic, T."

"Indeed."

O'Neill looked at the Jaffa for a minute. Sometimes it was hard to tell when Teal'c was making fun of him. He decided this _was_ one of those times.

"Another thing we haven't run into is the Ancient obelisk. SG-10 said that they had found one Ancient device with an obelisk." O'Neill looked around. "I see two devices with no obelisk."

"But only one looks like your ancient device. This other one could have seemed decorative rather than technological."

"So they messed up because it was _shiny_?"

"Come on—Bowman isn't the best at evaluating things at times."

O'Neill figured Daniel had him there. Phil Bowman had once asked O'Neill if Carter was romantically involved with Daniel, and if not—could O'Neill please set her up with him. Not too bright, that boy. "Point taken. They could have been wrong."

"And the tasks that she wants accomplished—Unite the Three—that has to mean us three. She inferred as much when she visited us in the holding room."

"Agreed." Teal'c nodded once. "I do believe that is what she meant."

"Return the shoes and the scepter."

"First I'll have to figure out how to get them off—but the wand has been destroyed."

"Again, are we sure?"

"You ever seen anything withstand being hit with the 'ka-whoosh', Danny?"

"No, Jack, I haven't," Daniel's tone was slightly more testy than Jack's had been. "But she seems positive that it hasn't been destroyed. Maybe she knows something that we don't. Maybe this scepter has the capacity to withstand the energy stream. We know that the Tollan could pass through walls and even the iris."

"But they did it with technology."

"Right—the Wand of Light _is_ technology, Jack."

"One wonders why this woman would want this technology." Teal'c pondered. "What use she could be contemplating."

"It seems pretty powerful, Teal'c, I'm sure that she just wants to control that power."

"The shoes appear to be able to manipulate time."

"Yes—I think that the shoes had paused time when I came through. That's why I couldn't feel a pulse when I checked—your hearts had actually paused mid-beat. No beat, no pulse." Carter chewed on her lip as she retreated deeper into thought. "What was she planning on doing with the wand?"

"She just used it to control us, before she clicked those heels."

"It was multi-functional. Much like the magical wands in the books by J. K. Rowling." Teal'c added this.

"Like the what in the who?" O'Neill stared at Teal'c briefly before turning back to Carter. "What is he talking about?"

"Harry Potter, sir. You know, witches and wizards and stuff." The corner of Sam's lip twitched into a half smile. "But he has a point. Hand devices are multi-functional, too. They can emit energy bursts, and also be directed to apply sustained beams."

"So the scepter may have several uses—it appears to be more versatile than a simple hand device. They all work on intent and energy, so what if this device could do whatever the user wanted it to do?"

"Just as in the magic wands in the novels." Teal'c stated again.

"And just as powerful." Daniel added. "It was going to work on all of us, wasn't it? The hand device usually only affects one victim at a time."

"But again," Jack said, "We don't know that for certain."

"She could have frozen all of you in order to deal with one person. Leaving fewer witnesses means that the ultimate goal is easier to reach."

"But we're pretty sure now that the wand survived, and that the burly guys are working with the lady who may or may not be able to morph willfully into a snake-like person, and who may or may not be a Goa'uld." Daniel sighed, looking at the golden mechanism once again. "So that's what we're kind of sure of. It's not much. If it weren't so terrifying, it would be laughable."

Nobody said anything after that for a while. What else was there to say? Daniel had spoken all of their fears about where this mission was headed. The Colonel restarted his lazy tracing on the floor.

After a moment, Sam spoke again.

"I wonder if that kind of technology could be created with a self-preservative contrivance."

"You mean that it can save itself?"

"Well, sir, why else would snake lady be so sure that it survived the matter stream? Maybe she knows that it's capable of saving itself."

"Or maybe someone saved it."

"But how?" Daniel blue eyes met Sam's.

"The Asgard can beam things away—they beamed entire pyramids off of Cimmeria. Who's to say that similar technology can't save a little wand from a matter stream?"

Sam grinned widely. "Sir—you are a genius."

O'Neill smiled back at her. "Why thank you, ma'am. Sometimes I even surprise myself. What did I discover?"

"The scepter was saved by somebody." Sam's animated face captured O'Neill's attention.

"Yes, but who?"

"I don't know—but that means that it still exists and we can find it."

"How do we verify that? And how do we find out where the Wand went?" Daniel asked. "I haven't seen anything here that looks remotely Asgard."

"Perhaps the wand resides in the same location as the DHD." Teal'c theorized.

"Son of a—I forgot that was missing too." The Colonel ran his palm down his face, then scratched at the stubble on his neck. As much as he complained about shaving, he hated the second day without it.

"So we still have to find the wand and DHD—and—"

"Which brings us right back to the final task." Sam grinned widely now—exhilarated. "The Oracle."

The Colonel made his "yeah—about that" face. The one that he used when he needed to tell General Hammond something that wasn't going to go over well. "Why don't you tell Daniel what you think about that, Major?"

Daniel raised his brows and looked at Sam. "What do you think about the Oracle, Sam?"

"I think that it's here in this room." Sam gestured to their surroundings.

Daniel glanced around until his eyes held on the gold mechanism on the wall. "The Oracle is the device."

"I believe it is."

"Maybe snake lady came here to consult with the Oracle—maybe that's why she's here in the first place."

"I think it's more likely that she's here to take the technology found here in the Tower." Jack cut in.

"Whatever the snake lady is here for, the device seems unwilling to allow her to have it." Teal'c opined. "It seems to be fighting back."

"What if." Sam began. She walked over to where the podium stood in front of the gilded device. "What if you have a Goa'uld who hears about this place? She hears that there is this wonderful set of devices here—a wand that can act with multiple abilities, shoes that can manipulate time, and a machine that will combine three people into one—"

"The Mazdans said that she brought the Wand of Light through the 'Gate with her initially." Daniel interrupted her, but that only made Sam more animated.

"Even better—she knows that the shoes are here, and that she can combine the two devices to increase her power? What if she hears that these things are here with only these innocent, kind people in Mazd to guard it? She figures that all of this power is hers for the taking. So she comes here, and then sends for help—back up—she sends for a sister—someone to help her to do whatever it is that she needs to do. The technology here is too much for one person, and it fights back somehow—there are safeguards on it that prevent it from being used wrongly. I gate through and destroy the back up and take the shoes, and now this sister in stuck?"

Excited, Sam stepped onto the Dais. "There's only one thing here that can give us the answers."

"The Oracle?" O'Neill grimaced and cocked his head to one side.

"How do you engage it, though? Is it going to interface directly with your head like it did with Jack's?" Daniel stepped up onto the platform with Sam.

Sam took a step backward and studied the set up once again before positing her theory.

"I think," she said, stepping up onto the dais, "That you stand here and pose your questions to the Oracle. The Oracle is probably some kind of a holographic image. The Ancients were very advanced—if they could figure out 'Gate travel, I bet they could figure out how to make a hologram interact with the outside world. Look—there are words here." She tapped where the writings adorned the podium.

Daniel moved closer to her on the dais, looking down at the spot Sam indicated on the lectern.

"Okay—" He muttered for a moment and then read out loud.

"_Ask what you will if you are prepared for the answer."_


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Sam stood on the podium, staring down at the words. She took a deep breath and turned to look at the Colonel.

"Sir." She said. "I need to do this."

"What _exactly_ are you going to do, Major?"

"I don't—" she shook her head once. "I-I don't understand your question. I can't know exactly what is going to happen until I do what is asked on the lectern."

"So you are just going to waltz up to the thing, ask a random question, and see what happens?"

"I really don't think that any harm will come to me. I think that this is a completely different piece of technology than the device that you encountered."

O'Neill's expression became harder—more focused. He stepped onto the podium with Carter, one hand at the ready on his weapon. "You do know that we don't have any clue what will happen when you activate this device?"

"Yes, sir." Sam involuntarily took a tiny step backwards. "But I believe that this is the only way for us to fix whatever is wrong here in Mazd and get home."

"And if this _thing_—this device," he waved the muzzle of his rifle at the golden mechanism on the wall. "If this grabs your head and downloads all sorts of _crap_ into it. You do know that we have no way of contacting the Asgard—we can't get back to the 'Gate."

Sam stood silent. Stoic.

"You do realize that you will die."

"Sir, I don't think—"

"No, you don't think." O'Neill shifted his weight until he was leaning slightly on one leg. He looked casual, as if he were chatting with a friend while waiting for the elevator. But Sam knew that energy was coursing through him at a breakneck speed. She knew that he was in a dangerous mood.

Jack glanced over to where Daniel and Teal'c stood watching them. He jerked his head towards the door. When they didn't move, he growled a single word at them. "Out."

They went. Daniel turned his head on his way to see O'Neill take a few steps closer to Carter-crowding her against the podium. He stopped just outside the door in case he needed to intervene.

Jack leaned in close to Sam, leaning on one hand on the lectern. "Carter, I don't want you activating that device."

"Sir, I think it's the only way. I have to complete this task."

"And you could die."

"It's the chance any of us take when we step through the 'Gate."

"But _you_, Carter, Earth can't afford to lose you."

"Earth, huh?" Sam fought the urge to snort. "Earth doesn't have a clue who I am."

"They might not know who you are, but they would be screwed without you."

"That doesn't mean that I can't control my own actions—especially if those actions are in the best interests of the mission."

"I'm your commanding officer. I can control your actions."

"Then, as my commanding officer, order me not to activate the device."

"Would it work? Would you obey the order?"

Sam looked at him for several long, tense seconds. Finally, she shook her head, her hair tousling in the vehemence of her response. "No—I wouldn't. _Sir_."

"Then what would be the point of me ordering you to do anything?"

"With all due respect, Sir, there doesn't seem to be much point in it at all."

"There are too many variables in this, Carter. Too many things that we don't know. You could be walking into a huge, ginormous trap. And you'd be going completely alone, with only some fancy shoes for back up."

"It's the only way, sir. It's the only way to complete our mission and get home." She indicated the podium with her hand. "I don't want to be stuck here forever, sir."

O'Neill fell silent. Carter could hear the faint whisper of his breath as he struggled for control. She bit her lip, wanting to do something, unable to.

O'Neill stood upright again. He absently scratched at his neck again—a sure sign that he was deep in a mood. He took a look off to the side to see where Daniel and Teal'c stood speaking quietly by the ring platform, and then turned his back to them, so close to Carter now that their shoulders touched. He didn't look at her, but instead stared down at his weapon.

"I can't lose you, Carter. You're too important to the team." He looked down at her. "To me."

He grimaced, as if the admission had physically hurt him—and it probably had. His lips stretched into a thin, hard line. "If you were lost—if you died—I couldn't live with myself."

"Sir, I—I" she stopped, breathed, and then tried again. "I know. But I have to try. I have to do something—and this is the option left open. Nothing else makes sense to do."

He shifted to stand in front of her, and lifted a hand to her cheek. "Stupid scientists." His palm cupped her face, his thumb stroked her cheekbone once—twice—before he let his hand fall back to his P-90. "Head full of brains and not an ounce of self-preservation."

"I'm a soldier too, sir."

"Yes." He smiled, finally, weakly, just a hint of pride in his deep chocolate eyes. "Yes, that you are."

He turned away from her finally, facing the doorway where Daniel and Teal'c stood waiting. "So, what do you have to do?"

Daniel, hearing him, stepped through the doorway and hurried towards them. "I think I know. I think that she is just supposed to stand at the podium and ask her question."

"What do I ask?" Sam watched as Daniel came to a stop next to the dais. "If I can only ask one thing, what should it be?"

"Maybe where the wand is?" Jack tried to sound encouraging.

"Or how to regain control of the DHD." Teal'c suggested.

"It's an Oracle—my guess is that means it's a fortune teller of some sort—perhaps you should ask a question about your future." Daniel's eyebrows steepled. "Or maybe ask how this whole thing will turn out."

"How would the ancients have programmed that, Daniel?" Jack had removed himself from the dais and now stood in front of the ancient device. "They couldn't have known who would show up to ask the questions."

"The task stated that I had to consult the Oracle. That's different from asking a question—that could also mean requesting advice."

"It could." Daniel conceded. "Well Sam,—go for it."

They cleared off the dais and away from the podium, leaving Sam alone at the lectern. O'Neill walked away from the device and joined the other two at the other side of the room, near where their gear had been. He watched her, intent, serious.

Sam considered. She waited for inspiration, staring in turn at the device on the wall and the lectern at which she stood. Finally, she decided on a request, and glanced behind her at the rest of her team. "Okay. I'm ready."

O'Neill caught her gaze with his own. "Go kick some Oracle butt."

To which Sam smiled, and turned back towards the device.

Readying herself, she took a deep breath.

"My name is Major Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force. I have been given a task to consult this Oracle." She spoke to the device itself. "I do not ask for power or for authority. I just ask for the way to complete this task so that my team and I can find our way home."

A sudden burst of light shot from the device on the wall and enveloped her. For the briefest of moments, she was caught in it, her form lost to the vision of her team. Then the burst was gone, and Sam dropped to the dais, crumbling like a rag doll to lie on the platform, completely still.

"Sam!"

"Carter!"

Daniel and O'Neill rushed to the platform. Jack reached her first, his hand immediately searching for a pulse at her throat. When he found one, he was overcome by a rush of relief so profound that it nearly undid him.

Daniel stood next to him. "She's not dead."

"No."

"She's probably been taken to an alternate phase or something." His words tumbled out in a rush—Daniel always spoke faster the more nervous he got.

"Or something." Jack brushed at her hair. He removed his weapon and handed it to Daniel, then took off his BDU shirt and wadded it into a pillow of sorts. He carefully lifted Sam's head and put the pillow under it. He wanted to pick her up and hold her—to cradle her—but knew that would be tactically stupid. He had to be ready to roll in case something happened.

And darned if he wasn't proven right in the next moment when he looked up to the ring platform activate. He raised his weapon—Teal'c and Daniel following suit—just in time to see a black haired woman accompanied by four Jaffa step off the platform and head into the room.

She stopped at the dais, and glanced down dismissively at Sam. "She has not yet completed her task."

"Who are you to tell her what to do?" Jack glared at the woman. "In fact, who _are_ you?"

Green eyes raised to study Jack and the other men. The woman seemed unconcerned by the guns being pointed at her. She answered simply, "We are sisters—we are united."

Daniel stepped forward, lowering his gun to his side. "What should we call you?"

"We are called many things. A part of us is Sthenno, a part Medusa. We are daughters of Phorkys and Keto. We are power, we are beauty. We are stone, we are flesh." She gestured gracefully to Sam, lying motionless on the platform. "We are enemies of Athena. Golden goddess of war and beauty and knowledge. She who would destroy us."

"Jack—I know who they are." Daniel glanced back at the other men, his eyes bright with discovery. "I know who she is."

"Who, Daniel?"

"From Greek mythology—the snake thing makes sense now."

"Who is she, Daniel?"

"Medusa and her sister Sthenno, Jack," Daniel ran a nervous hand through his hair.

He gave a brief, nearly hysterical laugh. "Two of the three Gorgons."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Gorgonzola?" Jack didn't relax his stance as Medusa glided nearer. "Isn't that a kind of cheese?"

"Jack." Somehow, Daniel could _always_ make that word sound like he was cursing.

"Daniel." Jack's weapon stayed up and ready, although not trained on any individual one of the newcomers. He watched as the woman neared Daniel.

She raised a hand to him, her long black hair rippling gently as she tilted her head to one side and smiled absently at the scientist. She leaned in to him sinuously, her mouth open, breathing a little harder than was normal. It was when she made a motion as if to lick her lips that Jack noticed that her tongue was forked.

He shuddered a little. Even after all they'd been through and seen in the past five or so years, that grossed him out just a bit.

But Daniel stood still, watching as Medusa reached out a hand and splayed it flat on his chest. Her eyes rolled back in her head briefly before she trained her green gaze back on him.

"We would have chosen you to be the Passion." She breathed. "Beauty should bask with Beauty, should it not?"

Daniel tweaked his eyebrows slightly, but maintained his composure. "So you are Medusa and Sthenno? Were you combined with the Ancient device?"

"We are One." She said, her hand now moved upward to cup his face. Daniel blithely ignored it. Jack figured that since Daniel had gotten more action on the weird side of the wormhole than he had on Earth, the younger man must be used to odd women. "We are beauty and power, stone and flesh."

Daniel nodded. "Yes, but what about the third sister? Euryale? Is she in there somewhere, too?"

Medusa hissed slightly and turned abruptly away from Daniel. She crossed back to where Sam still lay motionless on the dais. "Our sister had travelled from the West, beyond Okeanos, to join with us on this dais, but Athena destroyed her."

"Uh, I don't know how to tell you this, but that there on the platform isn't Athena—it's our friend Sam."

Medusa turned her head back towards Daniel. "She is beauty and knowledge and war." The tongue forked out briefly when Medusa hissed again. "She is, therefore, Athena. She has deprived Us of our sister. We must be Three. The Oracle has spoken that Athena will be joined with Us. When she awakens, she will Fill the Void."

Jack stepped forward and shouldered up to Daniel. "Danny—what's she talking about?"

Daniel's eyebrows steepled. "I think she—_they_ want to meld with Sam."

"That's not an option, Daniel."

"I know, Jack."

Medusa's hand traced its way lazily down Sam's face. "Such beauty. We robed her as the Goddess she is. She will meet her fate, however, as the Third in Us." Medusa almost smiled. "She will be beholden to Us forever, she who would have seen Us perish."

"Daniel?" Jack's voice demanded some answers.

"Uh—the Gorgons are a set of three sisters—Medusa, Sthenno and Euryale. Daughters of the immortals Phorkys and Keto. Perseus was sent on a quest to kill Medusa, and Athena protected him on his mission. According to Earth legend, he was victorious and he beheaded Medusa."

"And yet here she stands, ostensibly _not_ headless."

"I know, Jack."

"And wasn't there something in my eighth grade history book about snakes on her head and people being turned to stone?"

"Yes," Daniel nodded. "Apparantly that's part of the legend she has chosen not to embody."

Medusa whirled back to face them. "We are not legend. We are your God." And when her green eyes flashed gold, she raised her hand to show a gold device strapped to it. "You will obey us."

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, your high snakiness," Jack began, his weapon immediately raised to his shoulder, "But we don't really take orders too well."

"You dare defy Us?"

"We've got _quite_ the reputation for that around these parts."

"You will comply—you will show obeisance to Us."

"You really should check your In Box more." Jack watched as her Jaffa stepped into the room. He knew that behind him, Teal'c had established himself in a portion of the room where he could pick off at least two of the Jaffa nearly instantaneously. "And besides, this is quite the cliché—I'm _sure_ there was a memo about how much I hate those."

"Medusa—" Daniel called out. He raised his hands in front of him in a gesture of weakness. "Tell us what you want us to do."

"Daniel."

Daniel took a step backward to bring himself shoulder to shoulder with O'Neill. His voice, when he spoke, was urgent and quiet. "We have to buy some time. I'm fairly certain that Sam has the answer for defeating her. We have to trust that."

"Sam's a little comatose right now, Daniel." Jack spit out, "In case you haven't noticed."

Daniel nodded curtly. "Yes, Jack, I know. But she has the shoes, and I'm thinking that the Oracle will make sure that she gets the wand back."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

But it was Teal'c that completed Daniel's thought. "As the Mazdans said, O'Neill, the wand and the shoes together perform terrible magic. Perhaps these devices function in the same manner as Thor's Hammer."

"That would be handy."

Teal'c inclined his head and elevated one brow. "Indeed."

Jack's face reeked of resignation. "So we have to buy some time."

Daniel glanced at Jack, his eyes wide behind his glass lenses. "We need to give her the opportunity she needs."

"Time to sleep? That's all she's doing over there, Space Monkey."

"No, Jack, I think she's been _taken_—spiritually, or something—I don't know how. Her body is here, but Sam isn't."

"Taken where, Daniel?"

Daniel pursed his lips before answering. "Taken to consult with the Oracle."

----OOOOOOO----

She sat in a room that she recognized. She was on an overstuffed sofa. The fabric felt like velveteen, and the cushion was covered in red roses and green leaves on a cream colored background. In front of her sat two matching arm chairs, both covered in red chintz. A cross-stitched pillow nestled in the crook of one chair, and carelessly thrown over the back of the other was a crocheted afghan. Cream wallpaper trailed vines with roses down the walls, and a gold framed mirror—faux gold candle sconces on either side—hung on the wall above the piano to her left. She knew that if she looked behind her, she would find a large picture window overlooking a green expanse of lawn that rolled right down toward a quiet suburban street. The mailbox would be blue—painted like a miniature version of the reproduction Colonial house in which she sat.

She glanced off towards the right, and knew that the framed doorway emptied into the entryway, white washed stairs led upstairs, while a connected hall passed a powder room and laundry room before halting in a mudroom with a door to the back yard.

To the left was the arched doorway that passed into the formal dining room. Just beyond that, the kitchen would be yellow, with white cabinetry and shelving, and an island in the middle covered with a cheerful blue and white cloth. In the breakfast nook would sit a tiny pedestal table, on which would drape a white lace tablecloth.

Sam stood, surprised that she could. She felt normal—although displaced, even in so familiar a scene. A glance behind her told her she was right—the lawn was bright green, and a sprinkler shot arcs of water heavenward—it was summer.

She moved over to the mirror. She hadn't changed—still thirty-ish, still with her short-cropped blond hair and minimal make-up. She still wore the blue dress, and—she looked down to verify—the golden shoes.

The house sat quiet—although not silent. That house had always creaked a little, and even in this incarnation made little noises. As Sam crossed the living room, she took note of the cream colored carpet. The spot where she had once dropped a popsicle still showed purple. Grape. It had been a grape popsicle.

She moved into the entry way, but found it empty. No sounds came from upstairs, either. Turning 180 degrees, she crossed into the dining room. The table had been too large for just the four of them, but they had always had other officers and their wives over. The General enjoyed entertaining.

Sam lingered just for a moment at the table, tracing the back of one chair with fingers that trembled. Laughter seemed to echo—ghost-like—in the room, along with the clink of silver on china. As she walked towards the kitchen, she lightly touched a lamp on the sideboard. The glue from a hasty repair job still dripped down the back. Mark had been responsible for that one—a poorly thrown football on a snow day. Somehow he'd gotten away with it. Either that, or in the end, it hadn't mattered enough to fight about.

Sam smiled briefly. She had loved this place—until. . .

A sound in the kitchen brought her to alert. Sam immediately put her back to the wall near the door and surreptitiously peeked around the jamb. She saw a shadow on a wall, and heard the slight scuff of—what—slippers? Sandals? Not shoes.

There was a clink of porcelain. The metallic 'thunk' of something heavy hitting a burner.

"Do you still take milk in your tea, Samantha?"

The voice achingly—brutally familiar.

"Sam?"

But Sam couldn't breathe, much less answer. She stood paralyzed at the jamb, unable to do more than force herself to stay upright.

"Sammy, honey, it's going to get cold."

The voice neared. Sam managed to turn her head to see a face peering around the corner at her. Blue eyes in a remarkably pretty face twinkled at her. "I've made cookies, too, sweetie."

The face disappeared back into the kitchen. The voice continued. "So come along, Sam, you've got some chores to do, but I'm sure you'd like to have a little snack first."

She'd never once disobeyed that voice.

So Sam turned the corner and entered the kitchen. The figure bustling about wore a gauzy multicolored skirt and blouse set. Her short curly hair was tamed somewhat with an orange scarf, tied at the nape, with the ends dangling down her front. Sam smiled when she looked down to see fuzzy slippers. Not shoes.

The figure turned to face her and a grin beamed across her face.

"Oh, sweetie, I have missed you so very, _very_ much."

Sam swallowed. Her mouth felt too full of cotton to speak. She practiced the word silently before trying it out loud. Her lips opened and closed on a failed attempt.

When she opened her mouth again, it was on a sob. Her eyes were suddenly unfocused, filled with tears. She dashed them away with the back of her hand like a child, and saw the woman tilt her head, her face filled with concern and love.

"Sammy, come and have some tea. You'll feel better,"

Sam nodded, and wiped at her eyes again before finally being able to speak.

"I'd like that."

She smiled through the tears—laughing and crying simultaneously.

"I'd like that a lot, Mom."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Sam sat at the table, in her usual place—although she hadn't sat there in nearly twenty years. Her favorite teacup sat in front of her, filled with a blend that her mother used to order specially from a tea shop she'd found when she and the General had been stationed in England. Although logically, Sam knew that she wasn't really here, she still felt a keen sense of belonging. She was home.

"Are you comfortable, sweetie?"

"Yes, I am, thank you." Sam smiled at the figure bustling around the kitchen.

"Have you gotten over the shock?"

"What, of seeing my long-dead mother? Yes. Now I just need to find out what is expected of me."

The Oracle turned and crossed back to the table. She set down the teapot on a trivet and then set herself to pouring herself a cup. "I must confess," she began, "Of the manifestations I have been asked to become over the years, yours has some of the best tea."

"She had it mixed just for her."

"Tutnam and Bowles. I know. Although I don't think they'd deliver here, do you?" Blue eyes twinkled as the Oracle took a sip from her cup.

Sam smiled back. "I'm supposed to consult with you, but I'm not entirely sure what _about_."

"I know." The Oracle spoke simply. "That woman arrived weeks ago—her sister a little while later. I can't tell you how many times I've been sought out by the Goa'uld. They seem to think I'm just going to hand over the Wand and Shoes."

"Why do they want them?"

"Power, of course. They are phenomenal pieces of technology. An Ancient wizard created them."

"A wizard?" Sam gaped. "We've encountered kings and rulers and Goa'ulds other entities, but never any who purport themselves to be wizards."

"This particular Ancient did work that didn't fit the normal Ancient genre. Not that he was into parlor tricks or anything—cheap, as you might say—he just liked to create technology that did something interesting."

"Interesting?"

"Not truly useful. Other Ancients were involved with life-changing technology—as your Daniel likes to say, 'Meaning of Life Stuff'."

"Mm." Sam nodded around a mouthful of cookie.

"But the Wizard liked to entertain children. He liked to do things that brought pleasure. He thought that kind of effort to be just as important as trying to become perfected. I'll bet you never considered the Ancient children. What with their parents all trying to reach higher planes and all, they often were raised as serious little things."

"We didn't know that. We—we really know so little about them at all."

"Your Daniel could tell you more, but he seems to only want to translate that which is useful, not frivolous." She leaned across the table conspiratorially, "He tends to skip quite a bit."

"He's trying to protect our planet." Sam sat back in the chair. "Surely you understand that we have a job to do, and concentrating on having fun is beyond the scope of our mission."

The Oracle raised her brows and smiled gently. "I understand that you believe it to be so." She set down her teacup with a fluttering of her gauzy sleeve. "Please don't slouch, Samantha."

Sam automatically corrected her posture with a contrite, "Yes, ma'am."

"So, the Wizard created benign machines that did little more than entertain, until he stumbled upon the design for the shoes. You understand it was quite by accident. He was trying to create footwear that would cause instantaneous dancing by whoever wore the shoes. He erred in that goal, I think."

"And the scepter?"

"The Wand of Light was just supposed to be that—he wanted to create a mechanism that would instantly produce rainbows. Again, this device went wrong somehow."

Sam took another cookie from the milk glass plate in front of her. She knew that plate. It still sat—probably a little dusty—in a hutch in her largely unused kitchen. When it wasn't in Oracle breakfast nooks, that is.

"So, what exactly does the Wand of Light do? I've never seen it used. The Mazdans said only that it worked terrible magic."

The Oracle regarded Sam for a moment. "Terrible when used terribly. It can be quite awesome."

Sam prompted her to continue without saying anything. She simply waited for the Oracle to continue.

"The Wand of Light on its own is rather innocuous. It does nothing more than change the order of things."

"As in?" Sam interrupted.

"Patience, Samantha." The Oracle gave her a motherly look. "The Wand of Light can make things be rearranged. Remember—it was originally created for entertainment—for Magic."

"Rearranged, how?"

"Matter rearranged temporarily. A ribbon in your pocket instead of on your hat—that sort of thing."

"But something went wrong."

"The power that the Wand wielded was far greater than he imagined it could be."

"It altered more than just simple things."

"The first time he used it, he meant to make a rainbow—manipulate a few water and light molecules in order to create a prismatic effect—instead he created a weather system that flattened half of the crop fields. You can imagine that didn't make the Ancients very happy."

Sam considered this for a moment. "I can see that would be a problem—power like that would be difficult to control."

"The Wizard tried—he tried to dial down the device's power—but nothing worked. One day he happened to be wearing the Golden Shoes and he reached for the Wand, intending to take it apart and reorganize its pieces. He accidentally clicked the stones in the heels at just at the wrong time."

"Shoes that freeze time and a Wand that can change the natural order of things—"

"Coupled with energy and intent. The results were disastrous." The Oracle took a fortifying sip of tea. She swallowed gently and then patted her lips with the corner of a linen napkin.

Sam merely waited.

"You know what the other function of the golden device is?"

"The melding thing—Daniel said something about the population control measure that the Ancients had to adopt in order to survive."

The Oracle nodded, her eyes never leaving Carter's. "What was that measure?"

Sam shrugged. "From what he said, they had to unite three people inside one body."

"And why did they need to do that?"

"The writings on the wall said it had something to do with the population having grown so large that the planet could no longer sustain them."

"They could have left to colonize another planet."

"Why didn't they?" Sam stared at a point just above the Oracle's left shoulder. "That would have solved the problem."

The Oracle stirred her tea absently, prompting Sam with questions. "What would have made them meld instead?"

Sam stared at the physical embodiment of her mother, her expression a study in confusion. "They would have done that _only_ had they had no other choice."

"This is the part that snake lady, as you call her, and her kind, don't understand."

"The population was large on accident—so they combined three entities together to repair the mistake."

"Keep going, Sam." The Oracles eyes had started to twinkle again. "What qualities did they combine to make each new entity?"

"Passion, Strength, and Wisdom."

"Use some of that good old Earth logic your mother gave you."

"She was a clinical psychologist. She wasn't very logical. Think touchy—feely."

"Think Freud." The Oracle countered.

"Id, Ego, and Super-Ego."

The Oracle smiled encouragingly.

"The devices work on a combination of intent and technology. When the Wizard intended to take apart the Wand, he accidentally froze time and separated the three parts of the human psyche instead—each person became three people. One entity took the Passion—the Id, one the Strength—the Ego, and one the Wisdom—the Super-Ego."

Sam leaned forward and put her forearms on the table, her hands clasped in front of her.

"The device didn't unite three separate entities, it re-united one single person."

"Posture, Samantha."

But Sam, ignoring her, stood suddenly and walked to the large bay window across from the island. The back yard beckoned as it always had—green grass, a rose vine-covered gazebo, and the large tree in the far corner. Sam had broken her arm at the age of four falling from a tire swing on that tree. She smiled at the memory briefly before turning her attention back to the Ancients.

"So if you were to take three complete and separate people and combine them, would that cause a problem?"

"Can you imagine Daniel, Teal'c, and the Colonel sharing one body?"

"No. They would drive each other crazy."

"Now add in the fact that one of those people has a larval Goa'uld in his belly."

Sam whirled to look at her mother. "That's why this woman can morph. She is a Goa'uld—she just has literally been melded with the symbiote. That's got to cause great disorder. She carries both sets of physical characteristics, now."

The Oracle carried the tea pot back to the stove. She lit the burner again and the refilled the tea pot at the sink. Sam watched as she placed the tea pot on the stove to prepare the water for more.

"She wants me to Fill the Void."

"Mm-Hmm." She was preparing the tea, now.

"Does that mean that she considers me to be the third person in her little ménage?"

The Oracle sighed. "Technically the fourth—she did already meld with her physical sister, but she was planning on adding the third sister, too, to help to stabilize the chaos of being melded with a symbiote in that way. I believe you know now what the issue to be."

Sam leaned forward against the island, her hips resting against the edge. "So, how do I stop this? What are we supposed to do?"

The Oracle took a deep breath. "The Wizard couldn't reverse it completely. And he found that the devices resisted being destroyed. He retro-fit a recall device into them—so that if they were ever used on Mazd, they would be called back to the obelisk where he kept them."

"That's how the Wand escaped being destroyed."

"Yes."

"So, why are the shoes still on my feet?"

"You haven't used them."

"I used them to unfreeze the Mazdans and my team."

"You haven't used them for anything nefarious or self serving." The Oracle pursed her lips. "Sam, the devices know what they need, and right now, those shoes need to be on your feet."

Sam thought about that for a minute. "So that she can't get both items together again."

The Oracle inclined her head. "Yes."

"Isn't there a third device needed to achieve the kind of domination she thinks she can attain?"

"Return the Wand and Shoes and consult the Oracle—and Fill the Void." The Oracle punctuated each list item with a little jab of her finger. "I believe all the information is contained in that statement."

"So, you aren't the final object." Sam ran a hand through her hair. "The Void—doesn't that mean me in there with her? So, I am the final device. Me being melded with her would add the stability that she needs in this new single entity?"

"The shoes have chosen you—as will the Wand in time. There is so much inside you that the Goa'uld could benefit from. As much as you hated it, being blended with Jolinar could have been the best thing for the Tok'ra in the fight against the Goa'uld. You have so very, very much to give."

Sam felt a strange rush inside her. Just a few hours earlier, as she'd repacked her gear, she'd been considering giving up the SGC—taking her life in a different direction. She'd been feeling superfluous, as if anyone with her education could take her place and no one would know the difference. The past years would have sent anyone into a downward spiral, she theorized. Being given superpowers that failed when she needed them most, being killed and then brought back to life, having her memory erased and then replaced with a new identity, being forced to relive the torture and brutal treatment of another person—all combined with the constant pressure of being expected to come up with a fool proof plan to defeat beings with vastly superior technology and ideology that allowed for no reprisals. Take all that and add into it a certain recent birthday along with its corresponding biological clock, and some rather strong feelings that she couldn't ever act on, and you came up with an extremely muddled person.

She wondered if it was really all worth it.

She turned again to stare out of the bay window. She felt suddenly drained—as if she had no more left to give.

"Lonely." The Oracle took her hand and drew her to the window. They sat in the cushioned box seat, their backs to the yard, facing each other. "You feel lonely, Sam."

"I don't have anything outside work. All the people I know, all the things I do—they all have to do with work."

"You need something else," the older woman's kind, eerily familiar eyes peered into Sam's. "You need more out of your life."

"I don't know what, though."

"You do. You know." The Oracle's hand brushed Sam's. "Maybe you can't say it out loud, but you know."

"I'm not sure that this is worth sacrificing my entire life to. Isn't there someone else who can do it?"

"You know the answer to that, Sam."

Sam sighed—she did know. She had a knack for, as the Colonel would say, pulling brilliant ideas out of her butt. The thought of that brought a smile.

"You're thinking of the reason you need to stay." The Oracle's hand tightened on Sam's. "The two of you—there's something there."

"Something we can't have."

"In time."

"I hate to state the obvious, but neither of us is getting any younger."

"You have found a way of reversing that, Samantha." Sam looked up to see the Oracle smiling, a look of possibility on her face. "The Wand and Shoes have chosen you. I told you that the Wizard retro-fit safeguards when he found that he couldn't destroy them."

"Like the recall—I'm assuming that when the matter stream hit the Wand, it retreated back here—"

"Into the Obelisk." Nodded the Oracle, "It and the dialing device are safe."

"Is that similar to Asgard beaming technology?"

But the Oracle only smiled.

Sam took a deep breath and continued. "So what about the shoes?"

"They wanted to be found—they still had work to do."

"So I was allowed to use them to reverse the evil done to the Mazdans."

"That purpose was not to your own personal benefit. The woman out there doesn't understand that the Wizard also created a counter of sorts—so that the Wand and the Shoes could only be used once by an individual person for their own aim."

Understanding dawned on Sam's face. "They are of intelligent design—like you—devices that can reason and make decisions."

"The snake woman came through first—someone long ago had carried the Wand through the Stargate, hoping that separating it from the Shoes would lessen the danger posed by the devices. But this Goa'uld found the Wand. She learned of the Shoes. She desired to use the Wand and Shoes to enslave a population of people. But she had evil inside, and when she activated the device, the evil became melded with herself. If one person alone stands on the dais, they get to visit me. If two people are up there, they get melded. The result was extremely unstable. So she added the sister, which added a bit of stability, but not enough—and so now they seek you."

"They consulted with you?"

"Oh, yes, in a way."

"And you told them that I would come through and provide their stability?"

"Just because I'm an Oracle doesn't mean I can't stretch the truth from time to time."

Sam grinned then. "So what do I do?"

"You will do what you must. Remember intent and energy—utilize them both to stop the evil."

"And what were you saying about the Wand choosing me?"

"It will come to you when you need it."

Sam paused, assimilating the information. She closed her eyes and considered options, ran through possible scenarios. Gathered strength.

"Well—I'd better get to it, then." She said finally.

The Oracle stood when Sam did. "You will achieve great things, Samantha Carter."

Sam felt that rush again—as if her soul was being hurtled through a tornado. "Thank you."

"And come back to see me when you want to rearrange time for yourself." At Sam's look of confusion, the Oracle gave a knowing look. "You know what I mean."

And just as the scene before her whirled into nothingness, she smiled.

She knew _exactly_ what the Oracle meant.


	14. Chapter 14

Note: Thanks for the reviews. I really mean it! I write these stories because, if the world was a perfect place and I was in charge of the Stargate, this is what would really have happened. It just makes it better when I know that there are a few people out there that want to take those journeys with me. I don't have a lot of free time in my day, but the reviews, and knowing that there are people out there that want to know what happening next, have spurred me to write more. Thanks for the forum and the advice, and the time that you all have given. It's been fun!

Chapter 14

Doc Frasier had, in all her Napoleanic bossiness, given him some meditation exercises once—when his blood pressure had risen above where she deemed it appropriate to be. He was trying one now.

He was supposed to be imagining himself in a safe place—somewhere where he felt completely at ease. This, presumably, was going to make him more able to deal with the facts of his current predicament. Sitting on the floor with his back to the dais where Carter still lay silent, surrounded by strangely quiet Jaffa and two Gorgons inhabiting one body. He didn't know where Carter had gone, he thought that he was going to eventually be combined into one being with Teal'c and Daniel, and he was hungry. His weapon warmed his lap, but Daniel had forbidden him to use it.

Since _when_ Daniel had led the mission, Jack had no idea, but sometimes the archaeologist was a little scary. So Jack sat, _not_ using his P-90.

He hadn't shot anybody lately, and his trigger finger was starting to twitch. Seriously. It was twitching. He'd shown it to Daniel earlier, but he'd just given Jack _that_ look—the one that said "Jack, don't be an ass."

Daniel gave him that look a lot.

So, he sat there at Carter's side, and tried to decide where he would go if he _had_ a safe place.

His cabin, probably. To that little lake where the bass grow THAT big. He smiled, imagining those bass. Because although he'd never told anyone out loud, that's all that the bass were—imaginary. But it was still fun to sit on the little pier on his folding camping chair and pretend to fish. He liked it sometimes when he wasn't actually supposed to be successful. He could do that.

Although he'd never say _that_ out loud, either.

Jack looked around the room again, assessing, as he did constantly, their situation. Daniel had never met a snafu that he hadn't liked, and he seemed to be getting lots of mileage out of this one. Even now he was head to head with the Goa'uld of the day, trying to 'understand' her. Daniel called it research, Jack called it a waste of time. The only good Goa'uld was a dead Goa'uld. Except for a few of the Tok'ra.

Like Jacob. And that other one—the one that always wore brown.

Teal'c had the right idea—he stood by himself in the corner, his staff weapon ready in his hands. He'd tried briefly to gain the trust of the Jaffa accompanying Medusa—done his missionary "join us in freedom!" song and dance, but these guys weren't buying. There had been the normal Shol'vah stuff from them, and Teal'c had stopped trying. Teal'c was better able to compartmentalize things in that regard. If at first you don't succeed—blast them with your stick.

O'Neill sometimes admired that. But then again, sometimes he thought that he, himself, might be next. He knew that Teal'c neither understood nor approved of some of the things O'Neill was asked to do. He wondered if behind those unreadable eyes and stoic expressions, Teal'c was wanting to pound some sense into the Taur'i.

But that thought didn't belong in his safe place.

Okay. Safe place. Cabin. He breathed in and out deeply—Ol' Doc Frasier would be proud of the controlled breathing. Breathing—air. Air—wind. Cold wind. Windows. He needed to reseal the windows in the cabin. The cold winter weather had damaged the stripping, and it all needed to be replaced. He had noticed the last time that he was there—WAY too long ago, by the way—that the outside air was kind of seeping inside. That needed to be repaired before summer, when bugs would crawl through the same holes.

Sam, for all her scientific brilliance, didn't like bugs. Spiders totally wigged her out. If he ever did get her up to his cabin—completely platonically, mind you, he didn't want the bugs to ruin her experience.

Like the replicators. Those bugs ruined everything. Like the Asgard ship that was going to be named after him. And because of those things he hadn't been able to go to his cabin not once—but TWICE.

But he had been stranded on that planet with Carter—now _there_ was a safe place. Just a pond and a campsite and the requisite woods and trees, and no nasty bad guys—or bugs, that he'd been able to tell—to ruin the experience. Of course, Teal'c had absconded at the first opportunity to "commune" with Drey-auc, leaving him alone with Carter. Depending on his mood, Jack looked back on that nine days as either the best time of his life, or as nine days of hell.

He'd had Carter to himself—almost completely.

There hadn't been anyone else to draw his attention away from Carter.

See? The best time of his life, or nine days in hell. Take your pick.

Speaking of Carter, he looked over his shoulder at her—but she still wasn't moving. He did a cursory scan of the room, but Daniel was still talking with his Goa'uld, and the Jaffa were still looking menacing, and the Ancient device still sat silent.

What could possibly be taking so long? Consult an oracle—what should that take—like—eight minutes? Maybe ten if you really go deep. Carter had been "gone" for—he flipped up the cover on his watch and grimaced—over an hour. He stood, slowly, making no movements that would alert the Jaffa. He knew they were watching him closely as he crossed over to where Daniel was still speaking with Medusa, who had found herself a chair somewhere and was seated upon it as if she were the Queen of the May.

"Daniel."

Daniel glanced over at him. "Yeah, Jack?"

"What are we doing?"

Daniel made a little bowing gesture to Medusa and then walked toward Jack. Together, they retreated closer to Teal'c. Daniel leaned in so that he could speak softly and not be overheard.

"What do you mean?" Daniel had his quizzical look on.

"Usually, when we're being held prisoner by the Goa'uld, we are either trying to escape, or trying to defeat them. Since you won't let me shoot them, shouldn't we be trying to figure out how to escape?"

"Jack, what about Sam?"

"We could take her with us."

"She needs to be here." Daniel motioned with his head towards the Ancient device. "She needs to be near that thing."

"I just don't get why we're still standing around. It feels like we're waiting for a bus or something."

"Whatever needs to be done, Sam needs to be the one that does it."

Jack fingered his weapon again. "We could take them, Daniel, I don't understand why this is so different from other times. I mean, this woman has let us keep our weapons—this could be over, we could wait for Sam to get back here and then jet on home."

Daniel shrugged. "That's exactly why we need to stay. Think of what we could learn—this woman is a Goa'uld—yet she's not the egomaniacal Goa'uld that we're used to. What makes her different? This could help us to learn—"

"Daniel—she wants to combine us all into one person. She wants Sam to become one with her. Once she realizes that she's not going to get her way, how benevolent do you think she's going to be?"

"I agree with O'Neill, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c sounded annoyed, "We cannot merely wait patiently as this Goa'uld decides upon a course of action. We should plan on a decisive maneuver. This Goa'uld must not be allowed to attain her goals."

"Jack," Daniel began—

But just when he started his argument, a brilliant flash lit up the room. They whirled to see Carter stir on the platform. Her eyes opened, and she took a deep breath.

When the Jaffa moved as if to take control of her, Jack put a hand on his weapon and shook his head. "No, sorry, fellas." He got to her side and helped her sit up. She swung her legs around so that her calves dangled off the side, and then used her hands to help balance herself.

"You okay, Carter?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes, sir. That beaming in and out packs a bit of a wallop."

"Headache?" He said when she put a hand to her forehead.

"A bit, sir, but I'll be fine."

She closed and opened her eyes and few times, and then rotated her head back and forth—which obviously was uncomfortable. When Jack made a move as if to check for injury, she waved him off and said, "Just a little stiff, sir."

Jack looked behind him to where Medusa had stood and was nearing them. He moved his body to shield Carter from the Goa'uld's gaze. Quietly, he asked. "The Wand, Carter—did you happen to get the Wand?"

Carter shook her head. "The Oracle said that it would find me when it was necessary. She assured me that all would be well."

O'Neill grimaced again. "Nothing like a little ambiguity to thrill me to the toes."

"Sir," Carter was still trying to work the stiffness out of her limbs. "This person is inherently unstable. She tried to meld with a sister, but got both the sister and her own symbiote. That's why she can morph—physiologically she's both human and Goa'uld. We can't let her get the scepter and the shoes—the Oracle was very clear about that."

"But she doesn't behave like other Goa'ulds." Daniel had joined them.

"No, because only a third of her is Goa'uld. The rest of her is her host and a sister."

"So two-thirds of her is salvageable." Daniel theorized.

"When you're making brownies, if you use two thirds chocolate and one third dog poo, the poo is _not_ mitigated." O'Neill glanced back over his shoulder at the Goa'uld. "And that Gorgon back there is _not_ chocolate."

"Gorgon?" Sam smiled at O'Neill's analogy, but asked the question of Daniel.

"Apparently this Goa'uld has taken on the persona of the Greek demi-god Medusa. She has two sisters—Sthenno and Euryale. The sister who is in there with her is Sthenno, and Euryale is the one that you ka-whooshed. She thinks, then, that you will combine with her and Sthenno to lend stability to her melding. And," here Daniel paused, relishing this last tidbit. "Also apparently, she sees you as Athena the goddess of war and wisdom and beauty. Athena ordered Perseus to kill Medusa, and then protected him as he did so. She's determined to meld with you so that she can finally have control over you. Just thought you'd want a bit of history."

Sam's eyes widened as Daniel spoke. She shook her head and then turned to O'Neill.

"I know, Carter, it's all Greek to me, too."

At that, Sam smiled again, and O'Neill knew that the next time he was in a perilous situation, the next time he needed to meditate, he had found his safe place.

Someday, that smile, and the woman behind it, would save the universe.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

"We tire of waiting."

Jack turned to see Medusa standing several feet away from the dais. He glanced back at Carter, who was gingerly getting to her feet.

"Athena has completed the task of Consulting with the Oracle. She will now Fill the Void left by our Sister Euryale."

"Uh—No." Sam shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be melding with anyone."

The Gorgon's face darkened as her eyes narrowed into glistening slits. She stepped forward, her hair writhing around her, although there was no air movement in the room.

"You have deprived us of our Third. By token of that transgression, you will Fill our Void." She moved as if to raise her hand.

Jack made a move as if to shield Sam, but she put a hand on his arm. "No, sir. I have to do this."

O'Neill glowered at her for a beat. "You know, Carter, I'm getting a little tired of hearing you say that. We—" he made a circular motion with his finger, encompassing Daniel and Teal'c, as well as Sam and himself, "We're supposed to work as a team. That's the plan."

"I know, sir." Sam was standing now, testing her weight on both feet. She stood upright. "But there is no plan. The Oracle didn't say exactly what I was supposed to do—just what the outcome might be."

"Might?" Daniel's eyes widened. "I thought that Oracles were supposed to tell truths."

Sam shrugged. "This one said that she wasn't above stretching a few facts now and then."

Daniel and Jack exchanged a look. For once they were thinking exactly the same thing. Several of the words would have gotten their mouths washed out with soap.

Medusa's Jaffa had closed in ranks behind her, but their staff weapons were held loosely—not pointing at anything in particular. The Gorgon's skin was a shade of pine, now, and the once lovely features had become pointed and sharp. Her hair still writhed on her head, moving on its own volition.

"We demand that you serve us."

"Oh, here we go." Jack leaned back on his heels and then turned, his entire body an expression of supreme boredom. "Can't they _ever_ write new material?"

But Medusa's entire attention was focused on Sam. "You have consulted the Oracle. You will now return to us the Shoes and the Wand."

"I didn't get the Wand. I still don't have it."

"The Oracle did not grant it to you?"

"No." Sam held out her hands to show the Gorgon that they were empty. "See? I don't have it."

Just for a second, the snake lady paused. She glared at Sam, and then at the device on the wall, and then at Sam again. "We demand the Wand of Light!" Her voice echoed in the large chamber, as did the low, deep growl she emitted afterward.

Sam drew herself up to her full height. Her blue eyes flashing, she punctuated herself with one long, graceful finger. "Look, I can't give you what I don't have!"

Daniel couldn't help it. Raising one palm to Medusa and one to Sam, he took a single step forward. "Madam Medusa. Surely you can see that my friend doesn't have the Wand. Perhaps if we worked together, we could each find what we need."

"Work together?" The Gorgon laughed—a mean laugh without a smile. She approached Daniel stopping directly in front of him. "You are Wisdom."

Daniel did one of his little head waggles. He peered at Medusa from over his glasses. "Okay. Yeah. I'm pretty smart."

"Intuitiveness dictates intelligence."

"Not necessarily—sometimes intelligence is by design. Sometimes it is the result of careful thought and learning."

But Medusa just smiled, a bemused expression on her face. "Our learning was born to us. We desire to share our rule with one as learned, as knowledgeable as we are."

"How does the scepter help you accomplish that? Will it help you seek out another Goa'uld with the same intelligence level? I don't understand."

"We desire the information stored with the Repository of Knowledge found here. We know that you can interpret that information—catalog it." She became excited over the concept, and her fingers found the front of his shirt again, tracing idle patterns up to his collar bone. "We desire you to serve us in this capacity. We desire you to be this mate that we deserve."

"Yes, madam, but we don't understand why this scepter is so important to you." Daniel had the unique ability to completely ignore strange women feeling him up. "Maybe if you explained why you desired it so much, we could compromise."

"Daniel, we're not going to compromise in any way that lets you have half my body." Jack spoke up.

"Jack—"

"Daniel."

Daniel breathed out. Hard. Frustrated. "Jack—maybe she wants _my_ body. Have you ever thought of that?"

"What? Ach—Eewww. No." Jack sputtered. "Who would want _that_?"

"Does it matter, Jack? In case you haven't noticed, there are other things here to worry about." His hand indicated Medusa, who was stroking his left pectoral.

"There wouldn't be if you'd paid attention to my twitch. We coulda had them _all_ taken care of." Jack pointed out. "That's on you, Danny."

"We couldn't do anything—not with Sam out cold."

That seemed to remind Medusa that Sam still stood between O'Neill and the object of her attentions. Giving one last loving caress to Daniel's shoulder, the Gorgon turned away from him and rotated to look at Sam. Her forked tongue hissed out from between thin, thin lips. "What did the Oracle say to you?"

But Jack answered before Sam could speak. "Since you're a God, shouldn't you already know?"

"Demi-God, Jack. Medusa was a demi-God."

"What's the difference?" Jack answered Daniel without looking at him. He was too busy watching as the Jaffa with the Gorgon aimed their staff weapons, as if on cue. Jack immediately raised his P-90, and there was a sound behind them of Teal'c readying his weapon.

"Greek Gods were immortal. The Demi-Gods could be killed." Daniel had yet to pull out his Glock, a fact that Jack WOULD address in the mission debriefing. Sometimes the science won out over sense.

"We are your God." The Gorgon moved toward them. She stopped directly in front of Sam. She raised a green hand to Sam's face. The Goa'uld hand device glowed dully on her palm. "You _will_ join with us, then, and we _will_ find the Wand together."

Sam stood her ground. "No. I will not meld with you."

Medusa stared into Sam's eyes. "You will not deny Us."

Sam met her gaze levelly. "Oh, I think I _will_."

Sam could hear the methodical breathing of the Colonel beside her. He was relaxed, yet on alert, she could tell, by the pace of his breaths. Daniel, on the other hand, had finally realized that he wasn't armed. His hand twitched as if to move to the holster strapped to his thigh, but he didn't follow through with the motion. The Jaffa tightened their hold on their staff weapons and triggered the ends open.

She could almost hear the Colonel's eyes rolling as he muttered, "And again with the clichés."

As if on cue, the ring platform engaged. As the rings receded, a younger Jaffa materialized on the platform and ran forward, pushing through the other Jaffa, to kneel with a metallic 'thud' at the side of his mistress. He carried a bundle wrapped in what looked like burlap, which he held out to the Gorgon.

"I have found it, my Queen."

Medusa looked down at him from beneath lowered lashes. Some of the green dissipated from her cheeks as she regarded the package on the outstretched hands of the guard. Almost casually, she lowered her hand from its position in front of Carter and flicked the coverings of the bundle aside.

Her breath caught when she saw her prize. Her tongue flicked out over her thin lips. The Gorgon smiled at the object as if at a lover, enthralled, her breath excited and wild in her throat and her chest rising and falling with the effort. She reverently moved more fabric aside, caressing the object with careful, adoring hands.

Sam could see it, then, and her heart sank to the tips of her shiny golden shoes.

Lying amid the folded cloth shone the gilded form of the Scepter.

Medusa now possessed the Wand of Light.

And Colonel O'Neill groaned. Deeply.

"Aaawww, _Crap_."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Medusa fitted her hand around the scepter, and lifted it out of the bundling. Sam could tell it was heavy, although the Gorgon obviously had expected its weight.

"You've held it before."

"We brought it with us through the Chappa'i." She breathed, her voice airy and without inflection. The Wand took all her attention. She was enthralled. Obsessed. She spoke to it in tones of adoration. "We have missed you—even gone so short a time."

She held it aloft briefly, before lowering it to rest at her breast, cradled with both hands as one would an infant.

Jack took a quick inventory of the situation. Screw the safe place—he just wanted to get away from that wand. He could clearly remember the pain that it had put him through the first time. Not that he was a wuss or anything—he just didn't particularly enjoy going through excruciating pain for no reason.

Four Jaffa—five if you counted the little one who had brought Medusa the Wand. He was standing now, and retreating back behind the larger ones. The four guards had staff weapons and Zats—and who knew what else they had concealed under their metallic uniforms. Jack knew that they could store all sorts of things in there. He'd once watched a Jaffa pull what had nearly amounted to a four course dinner out of one of his breastplates alone. He was pretty certain that they had shelves behind that armor. How else could you just reach in and get what you wanted immediately? O'Neill thought about the pockets of his jeans, into which could fall three sets of keys and he would have to pull out two sets _every_ time before finally getting to the right ring. He wished his pants pockets had shelves.

But he digressed.

So he could count on Zats and Staff weapons and maybe some of those Goa'uld grenades. Those things were cool—unless they were used against you, in which case they totally sucked.

Jack didn't think that the young Jaffa would have been fully armed. So that made four staff weapons, at least four—probably five—Zats, and he had to assume that at least one of them had one or two grenades. And, of course, the Gorgon had the Wand of Light and a Goa'uld hand device.

Teal'c also had a staff weapon and a Zat, and a Glock somewhere hidden in his BDUs. More and more, the ex-First Prime was seeing the light and liking to use the projectile weapons of the Taur'i. Eventually, Jack believed, Teal'c would abandon the staff weapon for good ol' Taur'I knowhow. But for now, that only left Jack with his submachine gun raised. Carter's P-90 lay, useless, all the way across the room, and Daniel's side arm hung, still snapped into place, in the holster on his thigh.

When they got home, a major can of whup-something would be opened about preparedness and training—something about how firearms could only be _fired_ when they were somehow connected to _arms_.

They'd seen worse odds, but what tipped it in the Gorgon's favor was the Wand. She stood there hugging it to her, and Jack knew intuitively that she could and would use it instantaneously.

"The Wand of Light is ours. Athena will meld with Us now—whether it is or is not what she wishes."

Medusa lifted the wand and pointed it at Sam, who stood firm.

"You're forgetting that I have the shoes. One little click, lady, and this whole place is frozen in time."

"Once and that is all. You cannot use them more."

"Right. For my own ends. But freezing you would be to save my team, and then I could still keep the shoes until my own turn is up. Those are the rules."

"There are rules?" Daniel interrupted them, both his expression and voice incredulous. "The Shoes have _rules_?"

"What, like you can't wear them after Labor Day?" Sometimes, the words just came out of Jack's mouth before he even had a chance to hear them in his head.

Sam's eyes darted to O'Neill and then back to Medusa. "Sir." Her voice was sounding snippy again. O'Neill wisely decided to shut up.

"We demand that you step up onto the dais."

Sam calmly shook her head. "No."

Medusa raised the wand and Sam could see a change in her face. It glowed a brighter green—her nose and chin elongating until she was almost unrecognizable. Sam realized that the Goa'uld had taken control over the combined being. Her hair no longer danced around her head, now it hung, lank and lifeless, over her shoulders and down her back. The Gorgon had now truly become the monster.

Carter could see the intent in the Gorgon's eyes as she raised the Wand. Rage glistened in her eyes and hatred in her face as she lowered the wand until it pointed directly at Sam. "You will ascend the dais. You will Fill the Void!"

The tip of the wand glowed—just the tiniest, most ominous, bit.

Jack could hardly breathe, watching. But his finger eased the trigger back, just slightly. If she made a move to do anything to his Second in Command, he would blow that snake headed thing to kingdom come.

Medusa suddenly raised her other hand, the device in the palm glowing gold, and then a strange red. She aimed it Carter's head, but did not release the beam. "You will ascend the dais. You will Fill the Void. Then the Shoes and the Wand will belong to Us."

"That's what you want. You want your one use, don't you? The Oracle told you that you had one chance, and you want to utilize it to do something specific." Carter cocked her head in thought. "The Ancient Repository of Knowledge. You value knowledge more than anything else, but you know that you aren't capable of downloading that thing on your own. You need Athena to tell you how to do it. That's why you need me."

"You deprived Us of our Third." The Gorgon hissed, "You must Fill the Void."

"I wonder what form the Oracle took for you. Your sister maybe? Is that how you knew that she was dead?" Carter saw the hand dip for just the smallest instant before Medusa thrust the device at her again, and the glow became stronger. "You know, you can do it without the scepter and shoes. You do know that, don't you? We brought a databank that you can use to download all the information that you want."

"Carter." O'Neill's voice was a quiet warning. "Isn't sometimes _less_ more?"

"Trust me, sir." Sam's gaze never wavered from the Goa'uld. "We even have a Naquadah generator that we can use as a power source. If you trust me, Medusa, maybe we can _all_ get what we want."

"Athena is very wise." The hand dipped again, briefly. The Gorgon was thinking. Considering. "We wish for her to become One with Us."

"I will give you this information that you seek—a way to gain this knowledge, in exchange for the safety of my people and my freedom."

"When we meld, we will gain this information." Medusa said. "There is, therefore, no need to negotiate."

"But you aren't thinking about the damage I can do from within. I am not a weak-minded fool. I would dominate you. I would have the power."

Medusa hesitated. "You could never dominate Us. We are your God."

"To need me is to admit that you are less than I. No God would truly need a mere human blended with them in order to bring them stability."

"Enough!" Medusa roared. "Ascend the dais now. I demand your obedience."

But Carter just stood her ground.

The Goa'uld suddenly shifted the aim of her hand device to O'Neill. The energy stream hit him directly in the middle of the forehead. With a growl, he went down hard on his bad knee, his face bathed in the orange light of the hand device's weapon. Still, he managed to squeeze off a shot—a bullet which ricocheted uselessly off her personal shield instead of penetrating her thick snake-filled skull.

Daniel shouted and threw himself at Jack, intending to shove him out of the way—his momentum not only carried Jack out of the way of the beam, it also sent the Colonel's P-90 sliding across the room. It hit a wall and stopped with a sharp thunk just to the left of the way leading to the ring platform.

Teal'c quickly took aim and fired on one of the Jaffa, landing a blast on his shoulder. Two other Jaffa rushed Teal'c and, wresting the staff weapon from him, forced him back against the wall.

Sam dived forward at the same time, knocking the Gorgon off balance and interrupting her control of the device. The energy stream flew wild, gouging a chunk out of the ceiling just above the golden Oracle.

Carter and the Goa'uld lay tangled in a heap on the floor. Carter grabbed for the Wand of Light, which Medusa managed to keep it away from Sam's reaching hands. She twisted, trying to flip onto her stomach, but Sam was larger and had more experience in hand to hand combat, and used her weight to pin the Gorgon in place while she reached up to make another grab for the Wand of Light.

Daniel and Jack got to their feet as soon as they could, only to find themselves staring at the business ends of four staff weapons. Each Jaffa had opened the ends of their weapons, and had it pointed steadily at a member of SG-1. Jack looked murderously at their captors—knowing that he and the rest of his team were quickly running out of options.

Medusa managed to get her free hand between herself and Sam. She spread the hand device against Carter's ribs. Sam had the barest moment to roll away from the attack, and still the energy beam caught and singed a hole in her dress. Suddenly free, Medusa tried to stand, but a sweeping move of Carter's foot brought her crashing to the floor again. Carter rolled over the Gorgon's outstretched hand, pinning her on her back with one hand on her bicep, the other hand pinning the hand still holding the Wand on the floor above her head. Sam's skill and strength allowed her to hold the Gorgon still while she reached up higher to gain control of the Wand.

She could almost reach—she stretched, beyond her own limits, so high that it hurt. She felt the seam under her arm give way and rip. The Goa'uld beneath her writhed and yowled in her fury. She bucked wildly, violently, and nearly displaced Carter. Sam had to reach back down and redistribute her weight to regain control briefly before trying for the Wand again. Almost there—just a few more more inches—

Just when Sam would have grasped the object, Medusa dropped the Wand to the floor, tipping it with her fingers so that it skittered across the floor towards one of her Jaffa, who crouched down briefly to lift it to the safety of the space behind his breastplate.

Sam nearly screamed in frustration. Another Jaffa then lowered his staff weapon and moved behind her, lifting her forcibly from the Gorgon, still laying flat on her back on the floor. He restrained her as she kicked and fought, before finally thrusting her away, while another Jaffa reduced her to a heap of blue with a blast from his Zat.

Medusa's lips parted, the flickering tongue darting out to taste the air. She could see the Jaffa hovering over Sam, and at her nod, the guard bent over and plucked Carter from off of the floor, throwing her over her shoulder like a bag of flour.

Another Jaffa helped his mistress rise. She collected herself and smoothed her dress, and Jack noticed that her skin was returning to a more normal color, her features smoother and less angular. She raised her chin and glowered down her nose at the men of SG-1. Her voice, when she spoke was quiet, smooth, and deadly serious.

"You have made a mistake. This insolence will not be tolerated."

It was a line they had heard so very many times before, but Jack had no more smart-ass comments to make. A Jaffa had collected his P-90 and stripped Daniel and Teal'c of their arms. Using their staff weapons as cattle prods, the Jaffa herded the men back out the ring platform. When they emerged, they were taken back into the room they'd been held in before, and shoved unceremoniously back into their energy-field cages. This time, Daniel and Teal'c shared a cell, and O'Neill sat by himself on the other side.

After what seemed like hours, Medusa entered the room, followed by another Jaffa carrying Sam, still unconscious, over his shoulder. With a wave of her hand, the door on O'Neill's side of the room fazed out, and the Jaffa dumped Sam on the floor in the middle. The door immediately reenergized.

The Gorgon addressed O'Neill in particular.

"Perhaps you, the beloved, can convince her. We will give you an hour to decide. Agree that the three will become one to rule with Us. Agree that Athena should become One with Us." She paused, making certain she was understood. "Agree, or We will destroy you all and take great pleasure in it."

With a sweep of her skirts and a few clinks of Jaffa armor, they were gone.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

O'Neill tried to catch Carter as the Jaffa dropped her, but she still hit the floor hard. He did manage to prevent her head from cracking on the marble. He crouched for a moment in an awkward pose, Sam dangling from his arms like one of those girls he'd been with at Mardi Gras one year—too drunk to _know_ she was too drunk.

His taste for that kind of women had faded somewhat lately.

He lowered himself painfully to the ground, holding Sam under the arms, his hands careful not to feel anything interesting. He felt briefly that he should receive a medal of valor for that act alone. So very, _very_ much of her _was_ interesting. Not that he ever noticed. Much.

Damn. Now he was noticing. Down, boy. He imagined Colonel Maybourne eating a hot dog. Usually, that worked fine as a deterrent. The problem was that he usually didn't have both a head full of Carter and arms full of Carter. He might have to pull out the big guns on this one—Maybourne naked.

Success.

He sat with her draped across his lap, then scooted back so that his back was against the wall. He altered their weight so that she lay with her head against his shoulder, and she was sitting on his thighs. Another shift, and she was sitting on the floor on his right side, leaning on his chest, with his right arm around her shoulders.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Daniel watching him quietly.

He knew that Daniel wondered exactly what the status of his and the Major's relationship was. Teal'c had come out and asked him once why the two of them didn't just "assuage their hunger"—a phrase which O'Neill periodically fantasized about. That made it sound so—well—primal. For a guy like Jack, primal was good.

Daniel, on the other hand, studied them as if they were subjects in an anthropologist's course work. As far as he knew, Daniel hadn't ever asked Carter outright what was going on there—and he sure as heck hadn't asked Jack. Instead he just watched and waited and attached himself to Sam as a brother of sorts—or a gay best friend, which _might_ have worked if Daniel hadn't had affairs with women in most of the major solar systems. That kind of behavior tended to ruin the 'Gay BFF" image.

He watched her what—sleep? Be unconscious?—for a minute. She didn't look like she was in distress of any sort, and her heartbeat pulsed strongly where he'd felt it in her wrist. It always seemed to take her longer to work through the effects of the Zat than it did the other members of SG-1.

A movement on the other side of the energy field drew his attention, and he looked to his right over Carter to see Daniel lowering himself to the ground close to the barrier. Concern heavily clouded his eyes.

"How is she?"

"Looks okay—I haven't done a thorough exam or anything." His voice trailed off.

"Jack, did you see her feet?"

O'Neill's gaze flew to where her legs peeped out of the bottom of her dress. The Golden Shoes were still there, but bruises around her ankles and the tops of her feet suggested that the Goa'uld had tried to forcibly remove the Shoes.

The look on Jack's face would have turned anyone to stone, Medusa included.

"Jack, I think we're in a pickle."

"I know we are, Daniel."

"The Oracle said—"

"I'm thinking that the Oracle may have been wrong."

Daniel's brows furrowed. "But Sam said—"

"Daniel—I don't trust something that lives in a wall. She saw something—she was taken somewhere—but what and where, I don't know."

Daniel bit his bottom lip, quiet for a time. When he looked up, he studied Sam briefly before returning his attention to Jack. "Do you think that it was a hallucination? Do you think that it was some sort of mind trick?"

"I don't know," Jack said over Sam's head. "But what I do know is that she expected something to happen that didn't. She wouldn't have endangered us or the mission if she'd thought it was a dead end."

"She thinks the technology will save us."

"I know. She tends to have an unhealthy regard for machinery in general."

"Well, let's hope that she wakes up soon so that we can figure something out." Daniel passed a hand over his face in a gesture of both exhaustion and concern. "The clock is ticking. We have around forty five minutes."

He stood and crossed back over to where Teal'c had put himself into a shallow kelnorim. He sat on the ground next to the Jaffa and closed his eyes. Sometimes, when all else failed, meditation could help bring inspiration.

Jack watched until Daniel closed his eyes. His butt was starting to fall asleep, a fact that he could blame either on the hard, cold floor, or on the fact that he was on the wrong side of forty and was starting to feel it. He hated the idea that he was getting old. He hated the idea that he was nowhere better in his life than he had been five years before. He hated the snake headed scum sucking creatures that kept him from moving on—from doing something that would have made him—what, happy? Content? Satisfied?

No, he'd been right originally. Happy.

Every once in a while, he allowed himself to become maudlin. He did 'alone' well enough, he supposed, but he'd never liked it. There'd been a time, right after Charlie died, when the thought of even _living_ scared the hell out of him. The idea of continuing to really _live_ his life had been terrifying enough to propel him through the 'Gate the first time—certain that he would be ending it.

The 'Gate had saved him—he was man enough to admit it.

Life went on, they said.

Whoever _they_ were. He'd always wondered about that.

He'd thought a lot lately about the argument he'd had with that archaeologist—Malikai—who had caused the time looping. Malikai, grieving his wife, knew that in order to see her alive again, he'd also have to lose her all over again.

Would Jack do it all again? It was something that he'd considered briefly, every once in a while, in contemplative moments. _Could_ he do it again? Love someone enough to marry, conceive a child and raise that child—knowing that the child could die, the marriage could fail? He'd decided that he could. Regardless of the despair he'd felt at the moment, time had tempered that anguish and experience had allowed him to move on and find some joy in everyday living. And the joy he'd felt watching Charlie grow had kept him alive in other horrific times—in other prisons where the floors were hardened by use and blood.

He'd said once that Sara had been able to forgive him, but hadn't been able to forget. He'd been the opposite at one point, and hadn't been able to forgive himself—but could forget in certain moments.

That had changed at some point—on some random planet—in some random star system. Jack had realized that he'd already forgiven himself. That he'd been able to find joy again.

Not that you ever got over that kind of thing.

Time just made it easier to live with, and gave it a little perspective. Made it possible to look for joy again.

O'Neill sighed heavily.

The irony was that he'd been willing to admit that recently, _had_ admitted it recently, but someone else had wanted to keep it in the room.

That somebody was currently curled up next to him. His sigh was steeped in irony.

She stirred slightly, and O'Neill spoke quietly, without looking down at her.

"How long have you been back with us?"

Sam smiled ruefully and turned her head the tiniest bit into O'Neill's shoulder. "I heard you talking with Daniel."

"So you know the predicament."

He felt her nod.

She allowed herself to just be held by him. She needed the moments to collect her thoughts, she told herself, but in reality she needed the comfort that he was offering. She felt like forty kinds of fool—believing in what the Oracle had said and then launching herself into a catfight with a Goa'uld. She really was losing it—thinking that she could have won that particular battle.

"Whatcha thinkin'"

"I'm thinking I'm an idiot."

He smiled a little sideways smile. "You're not an idiot, Carter."

"I feel like an idiot."

"Everyone makes mistakes—not that I'm saying you made one. I'm just saying that we need to move on."

"I really did think that the Wand would appear in my hand, or maybe in my pocket. I was assuming that the Oracle had some sort of beaming technology that would direct the scepter to a location where it would be of use to us."

"Carter, when have things ever been that easy for us? We're SG-1—we get lucky a lot, but not that lucky."

She didn't answer immediately. When she did, she was full of self-recriminations.

"I put you in danger."

"No, the Goa'uld did."

"Were you hurt by the beam?"

"No."

She breathed a sigh of relief. Her face was so close to his body that he felt her exhale stir the fabric of his shirt.

"You know what you told me earlier? That you couldn't live with yourself?"

He nodded.

"That goes two ways, sir."

He bathed in that for a moment before speaking again.

"Sam."

"Yes sir?"

"When we're talking like this—when you are lying on me like you are, and I am wrapped around you like I am, and we're talking about things that are pertinent to feelings and emotions and stuff," he paused.

"Yes, sir?" She prompted.

"Can you _not_ call me 'Sir'?"

Her face turned up to him, so close that he could count her eyelashes. She grinned slowly, a sheepish smile that turned brilliant. "Are you saying there will be future moments like this?"

"I hope so."

They shifted, her arm flowed up and around his neck, and he buried his face in the elegant curve of her throat and shoulder. His other hand found the back of her head and he threaded his fingers through the short silk of her hair. Her skin felt cool and soft against his rough cheek, and she smelled like home. He pressed his lips for the barest of moments to the satiny skin just below her ear.

"I really, really hope so."

----OOOOOOO----

On the other side of the energy field, Daniel came out of meditation. He opened his eyes, and focused. Directly in front of him, Sam and Jack sat, locked together. Daniel's brows shot up and his mouth formed a little 'o'.

Well, he thought, _that_ answered _that_.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Teal'c had, long ago, forsaken any hope of truly understanding the Tau'ri. As a race, they possessed many fine attributes. Loyalty. Strength. Creativity. Fortitude.

However, they also embraced many qualities that seemed to be incompatible with their stated goals. O'Neill's penchant for saying things inappropriate to the situation, for example. Teal'c had once questioned Daniel Jackson as to the efficacy of this behavior. Daniel Jackson had responded, "I don't know, Teal'c. Maybe he thinks he's funny."

_Funny_ did not kill the Goa'uld.

Another trait that did not seem to serve the people of the Tau'ri well was sentimentality. Jaffa dictates did not allow for emotion to rule action. Rather, emotion derived itself principally from effective action—either positive or negative. To be sentimental required one to regret one's actions. Or one's inability to act.

To be certain, regret or lamentation only belonged to the dead.

He admired Colonel O'Neill's aptitudes in battle and in the fields of strategy and covert warfare. Major Carter also possessed abilities which Teal'c held in high regard—among them her innate ability with technological objects. Inherent in Daniel Jackson resided the capacity to understand cultures and languages and to manipulate that knowledge into usefulness.

Yet for all these facilities, his team mates contained none of the coldness required to be true Jaffa. To be Jaffa required one to fathom that at times one must sacrifice one's life for the lives of the many. The Tau'ri considered the loss of a team member to be failure. Regardless of the outcome of the mission, it was considered a failure if they perceived there to have been too many fatalities.

Sentimentality had no place on the battle field. It made a warrior hasty and careless.

Jaffa were neither hasty nor careless.

Currently Teal'c sat in a shallow state of kelnorim. The condition allowed his senses to be heightened by a certain degree, and, rather than being unaware of activity around him, Teal'c actually knew everything that had occurred in the vicinity. He had heard Daniel Jackson and O'Neill speak about Major Carter's injuries. He had sensed them himself when his symbiote had detected the metallic sweet odor of human blood. He had known the moment that Major Carter had awakened from her Zat-induced blackout. The awareness of her needs in moments of weakness through the years had been an object of curiosity for the Jaffa. He felt a kinship towards her that he could not explain. Perhaps if his father, Ro'nac, had not been murdered by Cronus, he should have been given the opportunity to feel this same affinity with another child of his mother—perhaps a sister would have evoked the same connection.

He had overheard the conversation between O'Neill and Major Carter, in spite of the fact that they had spoken in hushed tones. He wondered that Daniel Jackson could not hear them, as well. Perhaps the same affliction that required his use of spectacles also affected his ability to hear.

The hardness of the stone floor only served to sharpen Teal'c's senses. He could hear fabric brushing upon fabric and knew that the Colonel and Major Carter had ended their embrace. A short whoosh of breath letting out next to him informed him that Daniel Jackson had also noticed. Teal'c supposed that he would be required now to emerge from his kelnorim and offer information concerning their current situation that the others on the team had so obviously missed.

At times, being the functionary on the team who offered insight and wisdom could indeed become tiresome.

For example, he could have informed Daniel Jackson several months ago of the results of the secondary Za'tarc testing. Teal'c had been present when Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter had expressed the depth of their feelings for one another in that room. Dr. Frasier had also been present. Teal'c knew not what form of persuasion was required of Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter to assure that the results of the session had not been divulged to General Hammond and the remainder of the command staff of the SGC. He knew only that Daniel Jackson had not known until moments ago the level of his team mates' attraction.

Great acumen was often wasted on one who would not see.

Teal'c waited until Daniel Jackson had risen and repositioned himself closer to Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter. Slowly, without drawing attention to himself, Teal'c opened his eyes and surveyed the room around him.

The rest of the SG-1 congregated as before at the energy barrier. Daniel Jackson currently spoke of a theory regarding the task given Major Carter of uniting the wand and the shoes. He believed that, given time, he might discover more information within the writings on the wall of the prison.

Teal'c stood and crossed to where they all assembled. He gave a slight bow as he approached them, and then stood silently, in observation. O'Neill informed Daniel that they lacked sufficient time for a complete translation. Teal'c inclined his head in agreement. He spoke. "I concur with Colonel O'Neill. There is not adequate time for such an undertaking."

O'Neill indicated Teal'c with a flat hand jabbed in his direction. "What did I say. You never believe me." He turned to Teal'c, eyebrows raised, expression innocuous. "They never believe me."

"I am aware that at times Daniel Jackson does not take seriously those ideas that you put forth, O'Neill." Teal'c inclined his head again, graciously. "However, at times, those notions are something _other_ than helpful."

O'Neill responded by shaking his head in feigned innocence. "What. Who, me?"

Major Carter quieted him with a hand on his arm. "Sir, I have to apologize." She looked humbled, and remorseful. "This is totally my fault. If I hadn't brought us here in hopes of gaining the information in the repository—"

O'Neill waved her off. "Naw—doesn't matter, Carter. If it hadn't been you, Daniel would have brought us here in search of his 'meaning of life crap'. This is the Goa'uld's fault. Not yours or his."

Daniel made a sound of protest. "Stuff. Jack, I used the word 'stuff'. Not 'crap'."

Teal'c watched them as they argued for a short time. Periodically, Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson reminded him of an elderly couple no longer enamored one with another.

Major Carter, in an act uncharacteristic boldness, reached over and lifted the cover on O'Neill's watch. Upon taking note of the time shown thereupon, she said, "Guys." When her first attempt at gaining their attention failed, she made the attempt again, more loudly. "Guys!"

At precisely the same time, they returned their attention to her and said, "What?"

"Time, guys. Time is running out. And I, for one, am out of ideas. I don't know what to do other than to go in there and act instinctively."

Teal'c rolled his eyes in an air of long suffering. His prolonged exhalation drew the attention of his team mates.

"Got something to add, big guy?" O'Neill sounded annoyed.

Teal'c looked at each of his team mates in turn before making his reply.

"Have none of you ever _viewed_ the film?"

Daniel shook his head and drew his brows together. "What film? What are you talking about, Teal'c?"

"The Wizard of Oz. A classic retelling of the story by L. Frank Baum. I once borrowed it from the base library."

O'Neill turned to Carter, baffled. "There's a library on base?"

"A small one, sir. Really no more than a decent selection of books, and a few videos and CD's that you can check out, too." Major Carter often clarified minor details of everyday life.

Teal'c continued. "During the course of our travels, your references to this film made me desirous to educate myself about it. I borrowed the video from the library and viewed it one evening."

"I would have watched it with you, Teal'c. We could have had a movie night." O'Neill pointed out.

"Team movie nights generally disintegrate into evenings of joviality and conversation. I much desired actually to _view_ the film." Teal'c continued. "When we had passed through the field of flowers and been carried to this place, I was struck by the similarities between our mission and the film."

"Such as—" Daniel prompted.

But Major Carter answered before Teal'c could formulate a reply. "The Wicked Witch of the East. Euryale approximates that character. I killed her with the Kawoosh, like Judy Garland's character kills the witch with the falling house."

"Hail, Dorothy." O'Neill beamed at Carter with pride.

"So that would make Sam Dorothy—and the three of us would be the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion." Daniel pointed at each man in turn.

O'Neill immediately took offense.

"Hey, why did you point at me when you said 'Scarecrow'—didn't he need the brain?"

"I said it in order, Jack, you were in line. I wasn't assigning characters."

Major Carter was thinking—the process clearly showing on her face. "The Goa'uld then, is the Wicked Witch of the West, and the Mazdans would be the Munchkins."

"The golden shoes would be the ruby slippers." Colonel O'Neill added.

"The flowers put us to sleep just like the flowers did in the movie—and the four of them were brought to Oz just like we were brought here." Major Carter again brought forth a salient point.

Daniel was looking confused again. "Then that would make the Jaffa—" he hesitated.

Teal'c completed Daniel Jackson's thought. "The Flying Monkeys."

Only Colonel O'Neill would have the testicular fortitude to laugh at that statement.

Teal'c ignored him and continued. "I am not certain that I believe that this mission is in earnest. Is it not possible that we have been lured here under false pretenses and then forced to take part in a piece of entertainment? Is it not possible that the reason that much of what has happened here has made little sense is that it is not real?"

Sam bit her bottom lip. Her eyes closed slowly and then reopened, in realization. "The Oracle."

"What of this Oracle, Major Carter?"

"The Oracle told me that the Wand of Light and the Golden Shoes were created long ago by an Ancient Wizard. He meant to create frivolous objects, and instead his inventions were powerful and unmanageable."

"So what were they supposed to do?" O'Neill was serious now.

"The Wand of Light was created to generate rainbows for the amusement of children. The Golden Shoes were meant to be worn as a joke—the wearer would dance uncontrollably. Instead, the Wand of Light emerged able to rearrange matter, and the Shoes able to reorder time."

"Good thing he wasn't working on the 'Gate project." Daniel pursed his lips. "But that still doesn't explain what is happening here."

"The repository of knowledge works on direct neural interface—it hooks itself directly into your brain."

"Tell me about it." O'Neill narrowed his eyes. "Been there, yada yada."

Major Carter continued. "What if SG-10 did interface with the repository? What if this 'Oracle' _is_ the database, and it downloaded information from the SG team member's brain? Who's on 10—Bowman, Echols, Ruter, and Smith?"

"Yeah, so?" O'Neill asked.

"Suppose that one of them is watching the movie one night with his kids—"

"Echols has got, what, four? Five? Last time I checked."

"Three girls and a boy." Teal'c clarified. "He often tells me of them and their exploits on the elevator."

"So he watches the movie and then leaves on a mission the next day."

Daniel Jackson caught on. "He interfaces with the repository, and it gains all the information in his brain."

Major Carter continued. "SG-10 returns home and tells us about the device, thinking it's a repository, when in reality it's a device that gathers information instead of disseminating it."

"Meanwhile, the Goa'uld shows up, dragging with her the Wand." Colonel O'Neill caught on. "The sisters come to what is ostensibly 'Oz', intending to become one with each other—right?"

"The writings actually say more than you translated, Daniel," Major Carter looked intently at Daniel Jackson. "The three individuals combined with the device were one single entity—the Wizard's devices had split them all apart, and he had to create a mechanism to reunite them. Every person on the planet had been separated into their own Id, Ego, and Super-Ego, and the Wizard was required to put them all back in the right place."

"Sounds like this Wizard was a bit inept." Colonel O'Neill opined.

"So that's the reason behind the population explosion."

"Over night there are three times the people." Major Carter's eyes became rounder the more she hypothesized. "This Wizard is the one constant in all of this. He created each of the devices that have caused the majority of this chaos."

"It could be that the other Ancients put him here so that he couldn't do any more harm."

Major Carter closed her eyes and shook her head. "Holy Hannah. He's imprisoned in the device. The Wizard _is_ the Oracle."

Major Carter allowed a brief laugh to escape her lips.

"The Goa'uld is real. She came looking for the knowledge stored here. The Wizard played her, too. She thinks he can really give it to her—and he probably can—but then he'd be in even more trouble than he's in now."

"But the Wizard knows that we have defeated many Goa'uld." Teal'c spoke again. "Perhaps he is certain that we will be able to defeat the one known as Medusa."

"We are the only way that he can think of to prevent Medusa from gaining access to this knowledge."

"He has orchestrated this from the beginning."

O'Neill spread out his hands. "It's a cosmic case of CYA."

Silence prevailed for several long minutes as the team stood, absorbing the new information.

O'Neill summed it up quite proficiently by stating, "I really _hate_ being used. It makes me feel so cheap."

Daniel's eyes grew wide. The unmistakable sounds of the Jaffa were faint, but present in the background. Their hour had come to an end. "Uh, guys."

"Yes, Daniel?" O'Neill glanced once over his shoulder to watch for the guards.

"What do we do?"

"Kill the Witch, Daniel." Teal'c cocked his head to one side and smiled. "We must kill the Witch and expose the Wizard. Only then we will be able to leave this place."

As the Jaffa entered the room, O'Neill had begun the second verse of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Whistling.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Sam Carter admired many things about Colonel O'Neill.

She'd confessed as much to Janet the other day during a routine exam in the infirmary. Janet had dissolved into fits of laughter, so much so that the shift nurse had been called in to give Sam her gamma globulin shot. Between giggles, Janet had twitted the Major about her admiration of the Colonel. She'd offered specific pieces of truly admirable anatomy to Sam for review and clarification.

"Pectorals?" Giggles.

"Shut up, Janet."

"Abs?" More giggles.

"Shut up, Janet."

"Thighs?" Giggles with a snort.

"Shut up, Janet."

"Eyes—no—you're not smarmy enough to be talking about his _eyes_, are you?"

"Shut _up_, Janet."

"Shins." Janet had thrust the thermometer in Sam's mouth. "He does have some nice shins. Some of the best shins on base, as a matter of fact. His _knees_ on the other hand—_yikes_. Those MRIs will give you nightmares."

Sam glared at Janet, her mouth pursed tightly around the thermometer. The diminutive doctor blithely ignored her.

In the middle of the reflex check, Janet suddenly stopped laughing for a moment and suspiciously looked Sam straight in the eye. "How much of the Colonel have you _seen_, anyway?"

Sam's leg had jerked _totally_ of its own volition. It wasn't Sam's fault that the doctor had been standing right in front of it.

"Ouch!" Janet had complained, rubbing the spot on her leg where she'd been kicked.

"Oops." Sam had demurred. "Sorry. Total accident. Really."

"Right, _Major_." Somehow, as petite as she was, Dr. Frasier could make _anything_ into a warning. And she had the big honkin' needles to back herself up.

Sam had behaved herself during the rest of her exam. As she was walking out of the infirmary, however, Janet had called to her.

"What?" Sam turned to see Janet hanging halfway out of the door.

"Next time you have a chance, check out his glutes." She'd waggled her eyebrows and smiled suggestively. "Seriously. Yum."

If it had been anyone else, Sam would have shot them. But since it was Janet, she'd just smiled, rolled her eyes, and headed back down to her lab.

Now, sandwiched next to Daniel between two huge Jaffa, she thought of what she'd _actually_ been talking about before Janet had degraded the conversation into a meeting of the Dinners for One Society.

Sam realistically recognized within herself the tendency to overanalyze things. This, she had decided long, long, ago, rose generally from the fact that she was indisputably a genius, and specifically from the insurmountable truth that, deep down, she was a Geek. She couldn't help it. She'd skipped Prom in high school in favor of the Math-Nastics Nationals competition in Des Moines. Not that she'd been asked to Prom, but if she had, the Math-A-Neers would _still_ have had their president at the competition. She'd been rather dedicated.

Like she said. Geek.

So that's where Sam's list of the Colonel's admirable qualities had come from. In trying to analyze why she couldn't seem to let him go, she'd started wondering why she was attracted to him in the first place.

It had nothing at all to do with his glutes—even though they _were_ quite respectful, as glutes went.

Not that she'd noticed.

The Colonel was more than capable militarily—in fact he was quite brilliant when it came to strategy and tactics. He could read his enemy and figure out motivation much more quickly than she, Teal'c, or Daniel could. He had an innate ability to know precisely the time to act in any given situation. Sam was still working on that one—she seemed to be a day late and a dollar short more and more lately.

Oddly enough, the thing that Sam admired the most was O'Neill's incomprehensible ability to throw the enemy off by being the opposite of what they expected. And he drew her to him in the exact same way. He would do things that surprised her, delighted her, and sometimes scared her—and she loved that sense of unpredictability. She was most attracted to him because he was an enigma. He was the kind of man who wouldn't be easy to know intimately.

And she'd always been attracted to the lunatic fringe.

The Jaffa kept casting sideways glares at the Colonel as they walked to the ring platform. Normally, prisoners would be trudging along slowly, frightened, or planning escape.

The Colonel was skipping.

Well, not skipping, exactly—his bad knee wouldn't really allow that—but he was doing a little step that had the Jaffa struggling to stay at his side. He sashayed along in time to his whistling. He'd switched from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to "We're Off to See the Wizard".

"Come on, guys, get a move on. Ol' Snake-Head up there must be getting a little anxious."

One of the Jaffa scowled more deeply than the others. "Your behavior does not fit that of one going to meet his doom."

"Doom, you say?" He sounded more than a little like a breakfast leprechaun. The Colonel stopped without warning, and the Jaffa behind bumped into him. O'Neill looked over his shoulder in annoyance. He started over. "Doom, you say?"

"Our god will not allow you to escape without fulfilling her wishes."

"Now, see, you've got the pronouns wrong there." He looked behind him at Sam and Daniel and scrunched up his face as he shook his head. "It's really a grammar thing with these guys. They don't get pronouns."

"Well, really, Jack. They are technically second language speakers. It's tough to get the intricacies of a second language." Daniel said, giving the Jaffa the benefit of the grammatical doubt.

"Wouldn't the 'She' be a 'They'?" Eyebrows raised, he stood with his palms extended upwards level with his waist. "Carter? Wouldn't it be 'They'?"

Sam nodded, her eyes widening. "Yes, sir, it would be 'They'."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Sam smiled, congenially, playing along.

As they stepped into the circle of the rings, he moved himself to the front of the group. "And don't get me started on prepositions!"

He quickly scoped the room when they rematerialized. Medusa stood near the dais, her Jaffa spread around the room at regular intervals. Sending a meaningful look towards the rest of his team, O'Neill stepped forward. They followed him in, and grouped together in front of the Goa'uld.

"Medusa!" He waved. "How's it hanging?"

The Gorgon stared at him, unmoving. After a moment, her gaze shifted to Sam.

"You have made your decision?" She addressed Sam individually.

"I have." Carter raised one eyebrow only slightly.

O'Neill spoke up from next to the Major, index finger raised. "I've decided what I want, too."

Medusa regarded him coolly. "Your desires are of no import to us. The one of Wisdom will be the central body. We have decreed it."

"Daniel? But he's all skinny and pale. Are you sure you want him? I mean—seriously—the man has NO butt." O'Neill motioned obscurely towards his backside. "None. Not even Spanx would help that boy."

Carter, momentarily stunned, looked over at him.

"Sir, what do you know about Spanx?"

"I read Cosmo." He said it innocently, with a casual wave of his hand. Seeing one of Medusa's Jaffa staring at him in confusion, he clarified. "It's an Earth thing. I'm guessing Jaffa chicks don't need such—support." His hands had formed into cups in front of him—like he was testing melons at a Whole Foods Market. Noticing, he quickly splayed his fingers and dropped his arms to his sides.

The corner of Sam's mouth twitched uncontrollably, and finally, she gave into it and smiled. Spanx. She'd have to tell Janet that one. Damn admirable qualities.

Medusa surveyed the four of them regally. "You have proven yourselves to be difficult."

"Nope, just staunch individualists." Daniel elucidated. "Individualists who really don't want to be shoved into the same body."

The Gorgon started again. "You are insolent. We are at an end of our patience." She glided to a point directly in front of Sam. "We thought to be generous to you. In exchange for your knowledge, we would grant you your choice of body for the Three. However, you have angered us exceedingly, and that option is no longer available to you." She gestured to Daniel, lingering in her perusal of the archaeologist. "We choose Wisdom. His physical nature more befits our splendor."

O'Neill grunted. "Apparently, they don't care that you don't have a butt, Danny."

Daniel squinted at Jack. "What? Of course I have a butt."

"Silence!" Medusa's voice rang out across the smooth stone of the tower room. "We have grown weary of this impertinence."

Sam's eyes shifted once to the side to watch for the Colonel's cue before she spoke. "You want me to share a body with you and share my knowledge with you, but you offer me nothing in return."

"We offer you life. Without the blending, you are of no use to Us, and indeed a danger. Yours the decision must be. Life within, or Death without. Power within, or weakness without. With the Wand and the Shoes, we will be invincible."

Medusa gestured to a Jaffa, who came to stand by her side.

"And for the Three, there is an additional benefit." She caressed the armor directly above his abdomen.

"Don't tell me." Daniel pointed at the general vicinity of the Jaffa's symbiote pouch. "Mature, right? The little—" he wiggled his hand in his best imitation of a snake. "The little guy's mature?"

"Indeed." Medusa inclined her head imperiously. "The Three will truly be our Mate. With the combined knowledge of the Goa'uld and the host, We will conquer all who dare oppose us."

"Well, I think it's only fair that we get a last request." O'Neill stepped forward.

Medusa perused him, her eyes showing more interest than annoyance.

"What request would you seek of Us?"

"I want to see the Oracle." O'Neill's joking had shifted. His team mates recognized the subtle swing from Jack to The Colonel. He waved his hand between Sam and the Goa'uld. "You both got to see the Oracle. If this is the last thing that I get to do as my own human self, I choose to see the Oracle."

The Gorgon started to glow slightly lime again. His request had angered her—them. "You have no need of a consultation. Henceforth the individual will end, and the melded being will replace it. You will not see the Oracle."

"You know, Your Highness," O'Neill's demeanor shifted back, but his intensity remained the same. Sam recognized that he was about to do something. She instinctively balanced her weight so that she could move quickly. "That green thing you got going there—have you _seen_ 'The Wizard of Oz'?"

The Goa'uld struggled not to look confused.

"It's a movie." Sam began. "There's this little girl who gets taken by a tornado into a magical land, and she meets three guys who help her find what she needs to find in order to go home. But there are these witches who force her to do things—and one of them is green, by the way, and she kills one of them, by accident, and then she goes to see a Wizard who turns out to be a fraud, but whatever—he's a Wizard, right?"

As Sam spoke, O'Neill casually sidled towards the podium.

"Silence!" Medusa shone with an olive hue, now, and her hair was starting to writhe. "I demand silence!"

Her Jaffa lowered their weapons and the ends glowed and blossomed.

Carter ignored them all. She caught O'Neill's eye briefly again and he nodded while edging closer to the dais. "But Dorothy—that's her name—did I mention that? Dorothy figures out the secret. She figures out how to go home—all she has to do is—"

O'Neill struck quickly—as he passed the Goa'uld, he knocked her over with a quick sweep of his arm. She fell, yowling.

Before the Jaffa could react, O'Neill had jumped on the podium and shouted his question.

And as the Jaffa shouted their customary "Kree!", The Colonel disappeared in a flash of light.

Daniel turned to Sam. "What did he say?"

Sam watched as the Jaffa and Gorgon tried to reenergize the Ancient device. Finally turning towards Daniel, she leaned in to whisper in his ear.

"The Colonel asked the Oracle where Kansas was."


	20. Chapter 20

Okay, so here's the funny thing. I got Chapter 19 finished, and published it. But then a virus of some sort hosed my hard drive, and we had to reload the computer (thank heaven for my more than patient husband who takes care of these things for me!) and when I checked in on the chapter, I found that the wrong version had uploaded! So, Chapter 19 was supposed to end a little differently. I decided that it wasn't important enough to change now that everyone's read it, and I didn't have time to write anything anyway because the baby was sick, so we'll just forget the whole thing and go on. But just so you know—because I think the whole situation is funny—the Kansas question that everyone apparently thought was perfect was supposed to be "So, you ever do any fishing?" Maybe the virus wanted something else. . .

Chapter 20

O'Neill opened his eyes and found himself in the Briefing Room. He closed his eyes back up and groaned.

He hated the Briefing Room. It signaled the beginning of work, the end of work, paperwork about work, and long treatises by the two scientists in his life about boring science stuff that really only affected him when it was scientifically hurting him somehow.

After the Looping Debacle, he'd started passing his time in the Briefing Room plotting ways to get rid of the Briefing Room. His latest favorite scheme was stink bombs and a dead skunk. Seemed like a great plan—until you figured that Carter would probably find some enzyme that could miraculously change the polarity of stinkiness.

That, or she'd fix it somehow with magnets.

So, here he was, off world, in danger, leaping through portals to chat with cosmic fortune tellers, and he ended up in—drumroll please—

The Briefing Room.

Could this mission _get_ any more screwed up?

At least he was sitting in Hammond's chair—that comfy one with the extra lumbar support. The old man had an eye for quality.

He leaned back, just to try it out.

Wow—it went back pretty far.

Cool. It swiveled.

O'Neill reclined it as far back as it would go, _while_ swiveling. He ended up in a heap on the floor.

It was while he was on all fours and preparing to stand again that he noticed the legs. Legs in BDUs—black boots laced up to just below the calf. Dusty, a little scuffed. O'Neill followed the legs up to the face.

Kawalsky.

It would _have_ to be a dead person that O'Neill had liked.

"Colonel." Kawalsky extended a hand. "Can I help you up?"

O'Neill grabbed the offered hand and stood. "Thanks, Major."

"Can I get you something else? A drink? Or cake? Or Mary Steenburgen?"

O'Neill smiled and tweaked his head to one side. "Nah—let's just get on with this."

"On with what?"

"I know that you're not Major Kawalsky."

The Oracle frowned and stiffened. "I'm not?"

O'Neill sat back down in Hammond's chair. He regarded the Oracle distrustfully. "Nope. And you know you're not, so let's just dispense with this whole show you've got going on here." He gestured towards the Briefing Room and its surrounding complex. "I know I'm not here. I'm in some Ancient Tower with a Goa'uld and her Jaffa."

Kawalsky's eyes clouded briefly, and then he shook his head and tried for a smile. "So you got me." A good-natured laugh—so familiar that it had O'Neill laughing along with it—erupted from the likable face. The Oracle kept smiling while he rounded the table to sit in the chair just to the right of Hammond's usual place. "What do you want to talk about? Because, Colonel, I know that you know where Kansas is."

O'Neill nodded. "Yes, I do. But you don't."

"Yes, I do, sir." Kawalsky asserted.

"No, you don't. You're a device on an alien planet and you don't know squat about Earth geography."

"I've learned all about it from the others."

"So SG-10 _did_ interface with the device."

"I don't think that they meant to."

Jack remembered not to lean quite so far back in the chair this time. He had to admit, this chair wasn't as great as he'd thought it would be. He fervently hoped that he never had to sit in it on purpose. Leaning cautiously back, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and stared at the dead major to his right. "And you learned about us—about Earth?"

"The Tau'ri, yes."

"And about the movie?"

The Oracle grinned broadly. "It was too easy. Mazd does seem to resemble this Oz from the piece of entertainment, doesn't it? And your Samantha—she did kill the sister of this Gorgon that now threatens. I have to say I'm rather proud of the fortuitous nature of this situation."

"See? That just proves how non-Kawalsky you are. He doesn't know what 'fortuitous' means."

"The forms I take serve a purpose."

"And what would that purpose be?"

The Oracle smiled serenely and leaned forward on the table with his elbows supporting his weight. "Interface with a being that wouldn't understand my true form."

O'Neill raised his hands in front of him and flayed his fingers. "Aack! Don't you say it! I swear—if you call us primitive, I will _find_ a way to shoot you."

"Indeed you are not primitive, if you have the wherewithal to discover what I am."

"Carter says you're the Wizard."

"Yes. Again, fortuitous, is it not?"

"Then fix this. You created all these things. It's within your capabilities to fix all the chaos you've created."

The Oracle spread out his hands in an expression of helplessness. "They are indeed my creations. Yet I have not empowered them. She who gives them power is the controller."

O'Neill watched as the Oracle stood and crossed to the observation window that overlooked the Gateroom. He swiveled carefully around in Hammond's chair.

"It was a way in which the others could monitor and regulate the use of the items. They did not trust that I could constrain them." Here he paused. Turning back to O'Neill, he shrugged sadly. "Obviously their fears were well founded."

"Carter says these items were made by mistake."

"I intended them to do other things. Yes." Another shrug. "What was I to do? The objects far outperformed their design."

"You could have worked harder to destroy them—or to place controls on them."

"I did all that I could. The others took offense at my methods and created the obelisk. The obelisk recalls the devices when they have been used here on Mazd."

"But Medusa and her sisters originally found the Wand elsewhere. They came here and got the shoes."

"Yes. Over the centuries, the Shoes and the Wand periodically were found and removed from Mazd and then eventually regained by the obelisk. The safeguards were always dependable."

"Were?"

"The Gorgon was not supposed to be able to regain control of the Wand."

"Her Jaffa found and compromised the obelisk somehow."

Kawalsky inclined his head. "Apparently."

"So now they have the DHD?"

"The—D" The Oracle shook his head once, but then smiled. "Oh yes. The Dialing Device. What the Tau'ri refer to as the DHD. Yes. The Jaffa have it now."

"Well, _that's_ unwelcome news."

"If your Samantha can do as she needs to do with the shoes and wand, then your lack of control of the DHD will be immaterial."

"Oh?" O'Neill leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "How so?"

"The Jaffa will be taken out of the equation."

"As in—dead?"

"As in, no longer useful to the Goa'uld posing as Medusa."

Jack flexed his hands in frustration. "Can I get a simple answer out of you?"

"Nothing is simple. _Intention_ is complex."

"Not everything has to be complicated."

"Yet you have chosen a complex way of living your life."

The non-sequitur killed the flow of conversation and Jack kept silent while he stood. "I'm a simple guy. This is the life that I've been given. I haven't _chosen_ a whole heckuva lot of it lately."

The Oracle/Kawalsky grinned. "You've opted for more than you know."

"Such as?"

"Going back through the 'Gate wasn't mandatory."

"No, but I couldn't let them blow up Daniel." Jack countered.

"That was still your choice. Going through the 'Gate provided the impetus for other choices. Eating the cake that began your rapid aging. Helping the young Orban child learn how to learn. Rescuing Thor from the replicators. Attempting to destroy the alien ship that threatened the Enkarans. Choosing to undergo the Tok'ra za'tarc cure rather than being—how did you phrase it—strapped to a bed? It seems that much of your life lately has been about _simple_ decisions that ultimately affect other people more than you _allow_ them to affect you."

"I'm not in this for me."

"If you were, what would you do?"

Jack slowly turned to the observation window. The Oracle's version of the 'Gate sat quietly below. "If I could use the 'Gate for my own reasons?" Sticking his hands in his pants pockets, he shook his head. "Probably not a whole lot different than I've already done."

"You sadly lack introspection."

"Like I said," O'Neill reiterated, "I'm a simple guy."

"'Simple' does not necessarily connote uncomplicated."

Jack had to agree with that one. Life before the 'Gate had definitely been more complicated—more difficult. He'd admitted that the 'Gate had saved his life; what he hadn't yet acknowledged was the 'Gate had also defined him more as a human being. He hated thinking about the fact that he would have been a better father and husband had the settling power of 'Gate travel been introduced just a few years earlier. But then, what-ifs weren't any good for anybody. Regrets only served to weaken the present.

At least, he'd _tried_ to believe that on occasion, but it had never really stuck. So many regrets still bounced around his mind that every once in a while he dreamed that he was stuck in a game of Pong.

He grinned in spite of himself. "You got me there, Oracle."

"So the question still remains. What would you do if you were utilizing the 'Gate solely for your own purposes?"

A vision of Sam wearing that infernal blue dress popped into his fron. He tried to shake it out, but there she remained. He figured that the whole 'Oracle' experience basically counted for a dream anyway, so he let himself relax and flow into it.

What if they could travel through the 'Gate to wherever they wanted? They had seen many planets that were beautiful—the Nox home world, for one. The Palace where the addicting Light was had been comfortable—and now sat amazingly empty, the Light no longer a threat. Even the place they'd gated to instead of blowing up in Thor's ship. What would it be like just to go somewhere quiet and live and explore each other? He could imagine Sam traipsing off from planet to planet collecting technology. He'd go with her just to be with her—not because they were in danger—not because he needed to protect her. They would hold hands as they stepped through the 'Gate. They could set up a homestead somewhere and he'd build her a lab and she could work on whatever she wanted to work on instead of being obligated to follow the directives of some beaurocracy. He'd fish. A lot. Their house would be a home—and they would be a family instead of just a team. Maybe he'd get some kind of alien dog.

A vision of a tiny golden head with bright blue eyes hovered just outside his awareness. He felt himself falling deeper into the delusion.

Children?

He closed his eyes on that thought. She was young. She would want kids.

And him? Would he want to have children with her?

He actually hurt—physically ached—with the wanting that he felt at that moment. He put out a hand to support himself against the observation window. He fell more heavily against it than he had expected.

The Oracle's voice was so quiet that it seemed a whisper. "So there is something that the venerable Colonel O'Neill desires. Besides smart-aleck comebacks and pie. Perhaps you are not so simple after all."

O'Neill muttered a reply.

"No, Colonel. You are not a dirty old man. You are a human being capable of so much more than you think. And deserving of so much more. In the movie, the Tin Man does not need the heart, you know. He already has compassion and the capability to love. He just needs to believe that he has those abilities."

"It's just a stupid movie. I never liked it much." He still couldn't look at the Oracle. He could barely stand to open his eyes and lose that vision.

"And yet you relate to the character."

"He's a character of fiction. There isn't anything to relate to."

"As you say." The Oracle shrugged again. "But there are certain similarities between you and Nick Chopper."

"Nick who?"

"Chopper. The original person who became the Tin Man."

"Okay! Enough!"

"His love for a woman resulted in his becoming an automaton presumably with no heart—"

"Enough! So why don't you just end this farce that we're enacting here and let us go and accomplish these great things?" Jack was suddenly angry. "Give Sam the Wand of Light and let her end it. Let us get back to Earth and find out all about this Rick Popper guy."

"Chopper—Nick Chopper."

"Whoever! Give Carter the Wand!"

"I can't do that. The Wand must choose."

"I don't believe you. I don't trust you."

The Oracle's face softened. "Don't you think I know that?"

Jack's hands clenched and he turned in a cold, refined motion. "So I'm making a demand. I'm demanding that you end this."

"I cannot end this. Samantha Carter must end this. She has the shoes. She must get the Wand. She has to find the way to end the threat of the Gorgon. Once she does, then the safeguards imposed by the others will lift. You will be free to leave this place—to walk through the Fields of Dandsa without faltering. The Mazdans will be safe. The DHD will be returned to its rightful place."

Jack reached for his weapon, only to find it wasn't there. His hand clenched again and then reopened to point at the Oracle.

"Look. I am warning you."

"I'm only a device, right? What do I know from warnings?"

"I don't know—Carter thinks that you are actually here. _In_ this device."

Kawalsky hesitated. "She does?"

"She's usually right."

"She thinks I am a real entity?"

"Yeah—although she's a little pissed at you. But hey—the Wizard was a real person—behind the curtain." Jack's voice was rising again. "I think that you're real, too. I think Carter's right. You must really be here to interact with people. That means that you have physical capabilities—and you can act to help us. You can get Carter the damned Wand."

The Oracle bit his lip, his face screwed up in thought.

Jack stepped closer to him and spoke low—steady. "You can fix this. Find a way to give Carter the Wand. Let her take it from there."

"She would not misuse them." A statement of fact rather than a question.

"You looked inside her, too, right? You know she won't."

The Oracle winced. "That requires a level of trust I'm not sure I possess. I've been so wrong before."

"You know, for an Oracle you're incredibly unsure about crap."

But O'Neill had apparently taken his customary step too far. In a sudden flash, he found himself back on the podium, awkwardly propped between Daniel and Teal'c, staring at the wrong end of a staff weapon.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

O'Neill tried to stand upright. Bracing himself against Daniel and Teal'c, he hefted himself onto his feet.

"Jack—are you okay?" Daniel's voice, worried, filled O'Neill's left ear.

"O'Neill. You do seem unsteady indeed." Teal'c was on his right.

"I got it—I got it." O'Neill stood up and gingerly let go of his companions. "See? I'm fine."

He instantly collapsed again.

Teal'c caught him before he could face plant into the cold stone floor. Jack found himself held up by Teal's left arm wrapped around his back, his head pressed against the larger man's side. "Indeed you do not seem capable of standing by yourself, O'Neill."

Jack's answer was muffled against the Jaffa's BDUs.

"We are prepared for your melding." Medusa's voice resonated behind him. He turned his head as far as it would go, and still could only just make her out of the edge of his peripheral vision.

"Uh, T—could ya—"

"I can, Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c shifted the Colonel so that he was once again mostly on his own two feet, propped between the big Jaffa and Daniel, who had retaken the position on the other side.

The Gorgon was greener than she'd ever been before. Her hair had commenced the dancing that it had done earlier, and Jack felt certain that if she were closer, the thick ropes of it would resemble snakes. He realized that he was standing between Teal'c and Daniel for a reason. She'd intended to meld them without his being conscious.

He felt a little sick in the back of his throat.

"So you're one of _those_ women." His voice croaked just a little. After effects of being "deviced", he figured. He cleared his throat and tried to stand on his own again. "Slip me a roofie and have your way with me, huh?"

The Gorgon dismissed him with a wave of her verdigris hand. "Silence! You are to declare your intention to meld before the device. Then you shall be as We are—combined in strength and genius."

A quick perusal of his surroundings showed Jack that Sam stood, fuming, between two Jaffa, each gripping one of her arms. The Gorgon stood directly in front of the dais, between the device and the podium, while Carter and her keepers were slightly to the right of the machine. He was on the dais, along with Daniel and Teal'c.

"And might We add, Beloved, that if you attempt another ploy like that, we will not be amused. This time, your Athena might not survive." Medusa smiled, her forked tongue playing with the crease at the corner of her lips.

O'Neill's eyes flashed back over to where Carter stood. His temper blazed when he saw the burn mark on her forehead. He recognized that kind of mark—Medusa had used the hand device on Sam because of him. He would see her dead. It was a moral imperative—a quest for him—the death of this particular Goa'uld.

"Of course, your high snakiness. I wouldn't want to force your hand in any way." O'Neill tried to sound contrite. He caught Carter's eyes with his own, even as he spoke to the Gorgon. "I would never _intend_ for you to become angry with us."

Medusa stepped closer to him, so close that he could hear the whispering hisses of her hair. "No. You will serve Us well. You will not do so in your current form, of course, but as a part of a more whole entity." She smiled again, reaching out to touch his face. Her skin felt smooth and unnaturally cold. "The pleasure We will take then. It will be legendary."

"I for one will take no pleasure in the melding." Teal'c intoned. "I will never serve a false God—no matter what form she takes."

"Why should you wish to serve a God when you shall _be_ a God?" Medusa cooed. "You shall have Jaffa to serve _you_. No longer the servant, but the King!"

"See there, Teal'c—King! Who wouldn't want that. You'd have to be made of stone not to be tickled pink by that idea. Right, Sam? _Stone_." Jack prayed inwardly that Sam was catching this.

The Goa'uld stepped back and crossed the room to where Carter stood. She regarded the other woman for a long moment before finally extending a hand to caress the burn on Sam's forehead. "Let Us make certain that no other such measures will be necessary, Athena. We warn you. We will not be denied."

Sam remained silent, her eyes huge. She glared at the Goa'uld, and then looked pointedly away, catching O'Neill's gaze again. O'Neill mouthed the word, "stone." Understanding flared.

"I'm sure that's your intention, right, Medusa?" Jack spoke to the Gorgon, but his eyes held steady with Carter's. "You intend to use the device to meld with Carter, and then what—cut the shoes off her feet? What happens to the shell of the other person? Or is the entire being joined all in one? Like play-doh—you know—knead it all together and eventually the colors blend in."

Medusa sneered and turned back to O'Neill. "Your insolence knows no bounds."

"Hey, I'm just trying to understand what we're signing on for, here. Obviously, we have no choice in the matter. I'm just preparing myself for the inevitable." He focused again on Sam, on that azure, knowing, gaze. "If that's what we _have_ to do."

"We don't know what to expect, Medusa." Daniel reasoned. "We are just trying to gain an understanding of our eventual state of being."

Sam could feel the Colonel's meaning. She knew what he wanted her to do, but she didn't quite know why. Or when.

"Danny. Danny. You know what's going on here. You're the expert on these—types." With a hand O'Neill indicated the Goa'uld. "But you know what I really think?"

"What are you doing, Jack?" Daniel looked at him incredulously. "What are you talking about?"

"_Play along, Daniel_." Jack's voice was rushed, whispered. More loudly he declared. "I think that she really wants Sam in there because Sam's prettier than she is."

"Jack!"

"Daniel." Jack nodded. "Like I said. Sam's more attractive, and so she wants her to blend in that attractiveness. She's hoping it'll rub off and make her a little—you know—" He wriggled his fingers around a little in the Gorgon's direction, finally settling on finger quotation marks. "A little more doable. You know? A little less 'beer-goggles required'."

The Gorgon was still holding firm to the wand, and the hand device started to glow dully in her palm. She was becoming angry.

"Come on, Daniel. You've been married. You know how women are. They're always jealous of chicks who are better looking."

Daniel finally understood. He looked up and over O'Neill's head to see Teal'c's head incline, ever so slightly. "Right. I know. My wife was forever trying to outdo other women. Clothes, hair, kohl around the eyes. It was ridiculous. But, Medusa, I can see why you think you need Carter in there with you. She is beautiful."

"Smokin'." O'Neill added.

"For a woman of the Tau'ri she is indeed not objectionable." Teal'c opined.

"Hey, T. That's a good one." Jack clapped his team mate on the shoulder.

"Enough." Medusa's eyes glowed in a brilliant flash of light. "First you will meld. And then We will offer the gift of the Gods."

"I didn't think Teal'c could be a host while he still carried a larval Goa'uld in his symbiote pouch." Daniel, of course, _would_ bring that up.

But the Goa'uld was obviously disinterested in technicalities. Her eyes moved over the assembled throng. Her hand still carried a dull glow, and her chest was heaving with excitement.

"Carter—do you mind? I mean—sharing her body instead of the perfectly acceptable—"

"_Hot_. He means hot." Daniel motioned in her direction.

"Yes, Daniel. _Hot_ is an appropriate adjective." Jack nodded. "Hot one that you already have?"

Sam frowned. She made a slight motion to see if the Jaffa would let her go if she moved. Their hands still clamped tightly around her arms.

The Goa'uld glared at the three men on the dais. Her voice emerged clipped and angry. "You do not think Us acceptable? You do not find Us attractive?"

"In a word?" Daniel asked.

"No." Teal'c's distaste bled through his statement. No one in the universe could deliver a line like Teal'c.

"I mean, when you're not green—maybe." Daniel continued. "With the green and the hissing—not so much."

"Without the green—and with about a case—or more—of beer. Maybe." Jack added. "But you see, no one is as attractive as Athena over there. I mean look at her. She's—so—well, she's got it going." Jack motioned with both hands in a shape similar to an hourglass. "Sorry, Medusa, but you come in a distant second."

Daniel tried to look surprised when she got even greener. "What—does that make you mad? Oh—that's right—the whole Athena-Medusa smackdown—it was over who was prettier. You'd think after how many thousands of years—you'd have gotten over it a little."

The snakes whipped around the Gorgon's head in frantic jerks, and her face now glowed a bright shade of jade. Her eyes had darkened to black, flashing periodically with gold. Pointed fangs gleamed in her open mouth, her forked tongue flicking back and forth from within. Her voice, when she spoke, was guttural and rattling.

"You dare to insult Us? We who are your Gods? You dare to compare Us to Athena—a mere tool. A pawn in this game of the Galaxy?" She moved between the dais and the device, one hand alight with the glow of the ribbon device and the Wand held out to the side with the other hand, in readiness.

"Hey—we dare. Don't you guys talk to each other? I mean, we've already killed a bunch of you critters, this information oughta get around. By now, it should have _clicked_. Right, Carter?" Jack's intent showed clearly in his dark eyes as he looked again at Sam.

Medusa opened her mouth in a great scream, her eyes flashing gold and then obsidian. Her face had lost any vestiges of humanity, her nose and cheekbones flattening into the ridges and lines of a Goa'uld's skull. She bared her fangs and drew back her lips in warning. With her Wand now raised, she pointed it at Sam, who instinctively moved herself backwards, dragging the Jaffa with her.

But Medusa stood her ground in the center of the room, between the dais and the device. Two hands outstretched, one with the glowing hand device, and the other with the dull throb of the Wand of Light.

Sam's feet began to tingle. The Shoes had come to life. She glanced down and the gems in the toes and on the heels were giving off a strange light—not like the glow of crystals—but darker and more alive. She tried to move the heels of her shoes towards each other, but the shoes fought her—no matter how hard she forced her feet, the jewels wouldn't meet.

Jack prodded the Gorgon again. "Isn't that all that this is? A revenge thing? You stupid Goa'uld and your revenge. What does it accomplish? You keep losing things and Jaffa and mother ships over these idiot rages of yours. And you're mad at Athena for what? Being prettier than you?"

Daniel jumped in. "Wow—look at you. You talk about dominance. Maybe some personal control would be a good thing for you."

"It seems she lacks the ability to do so, Daniel Jackson."

"We demand your obedience! We demand your silence!" Furious, her voice edged towards madness.

O'Neill jumped off the dais and walked over to where Medusa stood. She watched him in rage. When the Jaffa made a move to put him back on the platform, she waved them away and then raised the hand device towards Sam.

"Obey Us!" Her shriek filled the room. "We will kill Athena! We will destroy her if you do not obey Us!"

But O'Neill continued his circle, until he stood between Medusa and the device on the wall. "But I'm the one you're mad at, right, Gorgon? I'm the one being disobedient."

"You must meld! You must become One with the Three!" Her hair whipped around—frenzied, now, uncontrollable. The device in her hand shone brightly, as did the tip of the Wand of Light. Her intent showed as she pointed one at Sam and the other device at O'Neill. "Return to the Dais!"

"No!" Jack shouted back. "You'll have to kill me!" He kept a wary watch on Medusa, hoping that Sam was preparing for what was coming. Behind the Gorgon, Daniel and Teal'c stood ready, waiting for a cue.

Medusa raised the Wand of Light, its red jewel brilliantly alight, and pointed it directly at O'Neill. Her voice hissed towards him, vitriol practically dripping from her fangs. "We give the Beloved one final warning."

"Come on, Jack." Daniel edged closer to the side of the dais, presumptively to lure Jack back onto the platform. "Just come with us. Don't make her kill you, don't die over this. At least if you're one of us, there is still time—there's still hope."

"Indeed, O'Neill. Death is not preferable to sharing a body."

Sam's feet practically burned, but try as she might, she could not force the jewels to click together. She knew that was what Jack wanted—her to freeze them all. He thought that she could take the Wand of Light from the Gorgon if the entire room was frozen. The shoes had other plans, however—she could not make them touch.

He glanced briefly over to her, his eyes intent, and she frantically shook her head. The Gorgon lowered the scepter and pointed it at Jack. The tip glowed ominously—a bloody harbinger of destruction.

Seeing that Carter couldn't act, Jack stood still in front of the device. He straightened himself and twitched his head slightly in irony. "Well, then, you'll just have to destroy me."

"Jack!" Daniel shouted, real this time, not certain how far the Colonel would take the ploy.

Sam lowered her head as the Gorgon's face changed—her lips curved upward into a demonic vestige of a smile, and she brought her other arm forward until she grasped the Wand of Light with both hands.

Medusa's tongue lashed out with a final, yowling cry. She focused all of her attention on the Colonel, who stood, seemingly passive, arms outstretched in surrender. "You have brought this on yourself, Beloved! We will have to find another to be a third—but We will take great pleasure in your destruction!"

The green body jerked as the intention left her and flowed down through the scepter. The end shone red in a brilliant, glorious radiance, bathing everyone in the room in the light. The Gorgon screamed as the power burst forth from the end of the Wand, and she closed her eyes in exultation. She had attained something near ecstasy from the release of power—she laughed, full, and high, as she felt the flow of fury and dominance.

The rest of the crowd ducked from the brilliance of the flash—covering their eyes as the ball of energy surged and impacted. Daniel and Teal'c dove off the dais and rolled themselves protectively into the wall behind them. The Jaffa let loose their holds of Sam, and she ducked, squatting into a ball, covering her head with both hands. The sound of the blast muffled her as she let out a scream of both anguish and anger.

With a thunderous discharge, the brilliant flash dissipated, leaving only the Goa'uld remaining upright. Still laughing, she continued where she had been, her face a mixture of glee and dominance, her entire body brimming with bloodlust. Smoke from the blast enveloped them all. Dust rose around her and floated around the room. Medusa searched through it for the results of her display, but she couldn't see anything through the effluence in the air.

Rubble shifted and suddenly a hole gaped in the stone wall in front of her, countryside gleamed green and bright through the fissure. Sunlight streamed through the opening, reflecting off the dust as it settled in the room. The Gorgon shone less green, now, her hair relaxing as she moved towards the destruction, kicking aside pieces of stone.

Her excitement considerably dampened, she showed obvious distress in searching the rubble in front of her for the broken body of the Colonel.

It wasn't there.

In front of her, the wall lay in rubble, the Ancient device strewn in pieces across the stone floor. She raised her hand in anger to blast the stone away—seeking for sign of the Colonel, but her hand gripped nothing—the Wand was gone.

She seethed in anger, yowling for her Jaffa to search the rubble for the scepter, and for what remained of O'Neill.

---OOOOOOO----

Still crouched down, Sam struggled for composure. She suddenly knew that things would be okay—knew that wherever O'Neill was, he was going to be fine. Her feet no longer tingled, her heels no longer struggled to keep themselves apart. She cracked her eyes open briefly to see that the jewels in the shoes weren't glowing, but instead sparkled, unremarkably, like normal gems. Whatever power had flowed through them had moved on.

Yet she knew the tide had turned in their direction, because a strange pressure hugged her thigh. The Jaffa had taken her weapon, but left the holster strapped there.

And unless she was mistaken, the weight she felt in the holster belonged to the Wand of Light.

She smiled, her face still pressed to her knees.

She now possessed the Wand and the Shoes.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

O'Neill hurt. His back hurt, and his knee hurt, and his elbow hurt. He'd flown pretty far and then landed hard after the blast—that would account for the back and knee. He was a little stymied by the elbow, and then remembered the army crawl he'd had to do towards the door of the other device room once he'd landed almost perfectly in the center of the ring platform.

Aching elbow explained satisfactorily.

He had pulled himself through the door and hidden in the alcove behind it as soon as he could, and presently he sat, crouched behind a pillar at the edge of the door, hoping that the Jaffa serving this Goa'uld were stupider than stupid. Surely they would guess that he could have been flung this far.

That Wand of Light packed a helluva punch.

He could hear Medusa shrilly grousing on about finding him. There was a sudden brightening of the area and a crumbling crash, and he guessed that the wall holding the device in that room had collapsed, letting in sunshine. He glanced around the pillar to see if the Jaffa were coming to look for him.

The Ring platform was Jaffa-free, but a little figure stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. He was dressed in what looked like a fancy bathrobe—striped up and down with nubby ribbons of some sort. Strange little knotted clasps held the thing closed over his chubby middle, and what was visible of his legs were encased in what appeared to be thick stockings. Not the Christmas kind—the kind that old ladies with bad circulation wore. He had a neighbor that walked her annoying little kick-me dog in stockings just like that under a housecoat almost as annoying as this one was. She had almost as impressive a beard as did the little man in the circle. He, however had a better hat. A long stocking cap knitted in a conflagration of color that cascaded down his back and finally ended with a pom-pom at his knees.

He was wringing his hands and stepping from side to side on his little feet. Obviously he didn't quite know where to go or what to do.

He looked like a Mazdan.

Jack leaned out of the room, one hand extended. "Hey." He whisper-shouted. He motioned "come here" to the man with his right hand, gesturing for quiet with his left hand. The Jaffa closest to the door in the other room still had their backs turned on the ring room—thank heavens for small favors.

The little man looked at him. His expression immediately relaxed, and he hurried over to where Jack was hidden. He bowed tentatively, his white eyebrows furrowed over his blue eyes.

"Are you hurt, good sir?"

O'Neill reached out and grabbed the man's bathrobe, pulling him bodily into the hiding place. "Quiet down, will ya? I'd kind of like to stay dead."

"Of what do you speak? You are very much not dead."

Definitely a Mazdan, Jack thought. "No, but they think I am."

"Oh," the little man's face brightened. "I see."

He clearly didn't.

So Jack motioned towards the other room and the people still milling around it. "I don't want them to find me. They aren't good guys."

"Oh. Subterfuge." Said the Mazdan. "You are maneuvering to dodge the Jaffa by disappearing in the manner of one who has been blasted away by the effects of the Wand of Light."

"You saw that?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Jack regarded the man for a minute. "What do you know about the Wand of Light?"

The Mazdan visibly deflated. His shoulders slumped, and he dropped to the ground next to O'Neill, pulling his hat off as he descended. "What do I know of this wonderful scepter? I know that it is bad. Very bad." His beard shook as he waggled his head from side to side in abject sadness. "But it was meant to be good."

"Rainbows?"

"Beautiful ones. As grand as the sky above. But instead, there is only death and tragedy. And now destruction."

"You sound familiar with it. More than familiar."

"I've been exposed. Yes. It's a strange and wonderful thing. I know its beauties and its terrors."

O'Neill made another quick check of the ring platform, but still the Jaffa hadn't thought of leaving the other room. From his vantage point, he couldn't see the rest of his team, but he hadn't heard any tell-tale noises of death or destruction. He felt fairly sure that they were still okay in there. His main goal was to stay uncaptured—he needed to be free to get them away from this place.

"You are blaming me." The Mazdan's voice quavered slightly, almost in time with his quivering chin.

"What—no. I was thinking about our next move."

"Am I to assist you again?"

"What do you mean, 'again'?"

The little guy had wadded his hat up and now held it in front of himself like a shield—as if the ball of fluff could protect him if O'Neill got mad.

"Are you angry with me? I had hoped for you to be accepting of the help, but perhaps one such as you is prideful enough to not accept assistance. Did I maim your manhood somehow? Squash your mo-jo?"

"What do you know about my mo-jo? How do you know about mo-jo anyway?"

"I gleaned it from inside your thoughts. You were thinking about it as we spoke."

"When—just now?"

"Earlier."

Jack tried to think back to when SG-1 had passed through the Mazdan village. The man they had spoken to looked similar to this one, but he'd been bigger—and his beard hadn't been as long. Jack knew—_he knew_—that he'd never spoken to this particular Mazdan before—let alone about something as odd as mo-jo. And he didn't know that the Mazdans had that tele-thing—telephone, no—teleport—no—calisthenics—no—it was a tele—something—

Mind reading. Whatever.

Unless—_aw, crap_.

Jack studied the diminutive character for a long moment. He didn't like what he was thinking, and yet he knew the sudden insight to be right. Finally, pursing his lips, he spoke. "You're the Wizard."

The man looked up at Jack, his eyes bright with tears. "I am. A Great Sorcerer, I am. Was. Am."

"And your name would be—"

A sigh, a fiddle with his hat, an adjustment of his robe. The newcomer's bottom lip trembled again as he spoke.

"Some call me Tim."

----OOOOOOO----

"We demand that you rise."

Sam hesitated briefly, and then looked up at the woman looming over her. She'd regained composure, and her skin no longer glowed jade. The rope-like shapes in her hair had relaxed as well. She now only seemed seriously peeved, rather than murderous. Sam slowly unfolded her body and stood upright.

She could see the totality of the destruction, now. The Ancient device lay in a heap of stone and rubble in front of the dais. The countryside visible out of the gaping fissure in the wall seemed unreal—like the lone tree that escapes the lava flow. Medusa's Jaffa had stopped their search in the rubble, and now stood ready to assist their God in whatever she might ask.

Sam could see Teal'c and Daniel standing with their backs to the wall on the other side of the dais. They didn't look hurt, although Daniel had his worried face on. Teal'c just loomed, inscrutable as always, his face an unreadable dark mask. Sam made seemingly casual eye contact with both of them before refocusing on the Gorgon.

"Where is the Wand?"

Sam shook her head. "I don't know. The last I know, you were aiming it at the Colonel. You blasted him with it." Her eyes flitted over to the crumbled heaps of stone. "You destroyed him and the device."

Medusa raised her right hand, where the ribbon device still throbbed faintly golden.

"You will relinquish the shoes to Us."

"I can't. They're still attached. You'll have to cut them off." Carter stuck a toe out from under the hem of her blue dress. The Golden Shoe gleamed on her foot, still obviously as affixed as before. "See? I am physically incapable of obeying you."

"We will not be denied." The gorgon scowled, her eyes darkened. "You have done much to anger Us. You are deserving of punishment."

"I didn't blow up the device, though, did I?" Carter tipped her head toward the mountain of debris to her left. "That one is on you."

Daniel spoke up. "Excuse me—Medusa?"

The Goa'uld turned and looked at him as he took a step forward.

"Isn't this all—you know—over?" He opened his hands to indicate the devastation in the room. "You can't meld now. You can't consult with the Oracle, either. It's gone. It's over. Let us go."

The Gorgon breathed in sharply, hissing. She took a purposeful step towards Daniel, and paused. "It is _not_ over. We still have a mate in need of a host. We are still your God."

"Oh, for the love of Pete." Sam muttered. She smoothed down her dress with both hands, surreptitiously feeling for the shape of the Wand. It was still there. Luckily, the heavily embroidered silk draped over the holstered scepter, rendering it unnoticeable.

Daniel decided to take another stab at it. "Go back to your home world. I'm sure that you have plenty of humans there to use as hosts."

Medusa faltered. Her expression changed from haughty loathing to something more human—something vulnerable.

"Oh—I see." Daniel caught her eye. "You don't have a homeworld. You don't have anything but what is here—and that's not much."

Teal'c took in the Goa'uld's disheveled, unkempt appearance and quirked an eyebrow. "She is apparently without a power stronghold. This attempt to gain the Wand of Light and Golden Shoes appears to be a last ditch effort at becoming a major player in the Galaxy." He smiled—really more of a smirk. "It appears she has failed."

Medusa raised her right hand and leveled the ribbon device at Teal'c. "You will show respect to Us, Jaffa, or you will regret it."

"I think not." Teal'c melodious voice showed his disdain.

Daniel stepped in. "Medusa," he neared her, putting his body between her and Teal'c. "Medusa, listen. It's over. You've lost this."

"Silence! We will still have something we desire, Beloved, and if it will not be the Three joined and complete, then it will be you—fulfilled within through the addition of Our Mate."

Daniel stiffened. He adjusted his glasses as he answered. "I'd _really_ rather not."

"We are afraid we cannot give you an option, Beloved."

Daniel sighed and adjusted his glasses again. In a perfect imitation of the absent Colonel, he rolled his eyes and sighed. "_Aw, crap_."

----OOOOOOO----

"Tim?" Jack tried not to smile. "Is that your real name?"

"My actual nomenclature is very long, indeed."

"Then Tim it is." His eyebrows furrowed. "I thought you were supposed to be an Ancient. You look like the people who live on this planet now."

"The others must have chosen the form for me. I'm not certain they ever intended for me to be released."

"The other Ancients? The glowy beings—like we saw at Kheb? They did this to you?" Jack gestured towards the little man.

"This body? Yes. They must have made me appear as the other people on this planet."

Jack sucked in a deep breath as he muttered, "I was talking about the dress."

But Tim was again wadding and re-wadding the stocking cap.

"Something on your mind?" The Colonel finally asked him.

"I was waiting for the rest of the damage."

"What damage?"

"That which will surely come when your Samantha realizes she possesses the Wand and the Shoes."

Jack's head jerked back towards the Mazdan. "What?"

"When the Goa'uld destroyed the device, there was no place for me to go, so the others sent me here. Medusa's Jaffa obliterated the obelisk, and thus the safeguards have been breached. You will probably find the DHD back at the 'Gate and the flowers of Dandsa no longer in bloom. There was no other place for the Wand of Light to dwell, so it chose your Samantha."

Jack stuck his face around the pillar again, trying to see across the way to where Sam was. Jaffa and debris blocked his view.

"So she has them both."

"Yes."

"Why isn't she using them?"

The Wizard shrugged. "Perhaps she is desiring for you to bring her your more conventional Earth weapons. She may not be too comfortable with the Wand and Shoes. They are very powerful."

Jack let his head fall back with a dull thud on the wall behind him. "I would if I knew where they were, Tim."

But the little Mazdan was on his feet and walking a few feet away to where there was a heap in a corner. His gesture bespoke Vanna White. "Are these not they?"

Jack didn't often feel like an idiot. He was fairly secure in his own levels of intelligence and ability—and he was definitely smart enough to surround himself with people who could figure out things that he didn't particularly care enough to figure out. He knew enough to know when to ask for help, and really, that was half the battle, usually.

But here, on Mazd, in the chamber with the Ancient repository—or whatever it was—in it, he'd been less than ten feet away from all his gear, and hadn't even realized it.

There were doorknobs on Earth that were smarter than Jack felt in that moment.

He felt like saying all sorts of bad words, but he found it difficult to swear around the child-like Wizard. He settled for a lot of creative muttering as he suited himself up, checking magazines and cartridges, and shoving some grenades and other more interesting armaments into his pockets.

Total freakin' moron. He hoped this NEVER got out on Earth. He'd never hear the end of it. He wondered how much he'd have to pay Tim to never tell.

Finally ready, he motioned for Tim to stay well behind him before venturing across the ring platform towards the other room. He shouldered up to the wall outside the door and stood there silently, listening.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

"_We are afraid we cannot give you an option, Beloved."_

O'Neill heard Daniel shift positions and then sigh out, "Aw, crap."

The Goa'uld spoke again, loudly. "Jaffa! Kree!"

The heavy thudding footsteps of the guard closed in on where her voice had come from, and Jack took the opportunity to peek into the room.

Daniel and Teal'c were the closest of his team to the door, a Jaffa on either side of them. Three more Jaffa skirted the room from them to where Sam stood near the window closest to where the device had been situated. She was only a few feet away from the hole in the wall, and the pile of rubble. The dais was still where it had been before, and the Goa'uld had positioned herself between it and the door, while one Jaffa waited next to her, and another was just to the left of the door.

Jack wondered cynically when the Jaffa were going to figure out the havoc that their armor played on their peripheral vision. The one guarding the door couldn't have seen O'Neill if he'd tried—even though the Colonel was just a few feet away from him.

There weren't as many Jaffa as there had been before. Some of them must have been killed in the blast. Seven remained. Seven Jaffa and the Gorgon.

He'd had worse odds.

A movement of the Goa'uld caught his eye. She had placed her hand on the Jaffa's armor and unsnapped the breastplate. Her long fingers caressed a trail down his chest and paused at his abdomen. Jack saw her smile as she pushed aside the fabric covering the Jaffa's symbiote pouch. The x-shaped slit convulsed slightly and then the head of a mature symbiote appeared from within.

Jack's eyes moved to Daniel, who was looking just about as green as the Gorgon.

"You will not feel a thing, Beloved." She cooed to Daniel before returning her attention to the snake. Her face softened as she stroked the top of the symbiote's head. "Does this host please you, Our love?"

Jack immediately put his finger on the trigger of his weapon, releasing the safety with a flick of his thumb. He drew another Beretta from his BDU pocket and readied that one, too. He could hear the slick slurping sound of the symbiote emerging from the pouch, the high pitched squeal it made as the Gorgon held it aloft. The Jaffa stepped away from the tableau, righting his armor. Jack wondered if he was prepared to die. Without a replacement symbiote, he wouldn't last long.

The Goa'uld stepped closer to Daniel. Her face alight with excitement, she ran her fingers down Daniel's face while holding the squirming snake with her other hand. "Trust Us, Beloved. You will not feel any pain."

Daniel flinched as the Jaffa on his left turned him so that the Goa'uld had greater access to his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack watched as Carter slowly lifted the hem of her skirt so that she would have access to the Wand.

There wasn't time to wait for that. The Colonel knew he had to act quickly.

O'Neill sidled into the room directly behind the Jaffa standing sentry the door, using the guard's bulk as cover. The three Jaffa on the other side of the room were watching the implantation progress. Teal'c's gaze focused completely on the symbiote writhing in the Goa'uld's hand. Nobody saw Jack as he leveled his weapon at the Goa'uld, nor heard the soft _snick_ of the trigger being depressed.

Just as the snake was given access to the back of Daniel's neck, O'Neill took careful aim and squeezed the trigger as he exhaled.

The symbiote exploded into a mess of tissue and gore.

Immediately, Jack yelled at Teal'c and threw him the other Beretta. In the same motion, firing rapidly, he took out the three Jaffa at the opposite side. Sparks flew from their armor as they fell, motionless, to the ground.

Teal'c fired at the Jaffa who had just lost his symbiote, and then grabbed the other guard's staff weapon as he was raising it, twisting it from his grip and using it to bludgeon him across the head. The guard collapsed in a heap. Teal'c tossed the Beretta to Daniel, who, staring at it for a split-second, chambered another round, fired on the guard to his right, and then turned to aim it directly at the Gorgon, who stood panting, covered in symbiote muck, staring at her now-empty hand.

The guard in front of O'Neill whirled, a Zat in his hand. He fired, but the shot flew wide, and the Colonel stepped quickly aside as he saw Teal'c fire his new found staff weapon. A shower of sparks rose from the back of the Jaffa, and he staggered a step before falling face forward through the opening into the Chamber.

Sam had gotten the Wand of Light out of the holster on her thigh, but it was too late. All seven Jaffa lay still and useless, littering the room. The Goa'uld stood alone in the center, her once radiant beauty marred by blood, tissue, and hate. Her skin now was so green it was almost black. Her forked tongue danced out of her mouth, through teeth so sharp and hooked now that they no longer resembled human teeth.

She turned her attention away from Daniel and looked at Sam. "Athena." Her voice dripped with venom. "You plague Us."

Sam shifted the weight of the Wand in her hand. She'd expected to feel the tingle again in her feet—telling her that it was time to use the devices, but her feet felt normal, and the Wand was showing a distinctive lack of glowing. She moved her hand up on the scepter, thinking that, if nothing else, it would make a good club.

"Because of you, We have lost everything. We, who could have been a System Lord." Slowly, the Gorgon made her way towards her nemesis, stepping up and over the dais.

The Colonel leveled his weapon at the Goa'uld, preparing to fire, but Daniel's voice stopped him. "Jack—the shield. She's got that personal defense shield. The bullet will just ricochet."

"Indeed, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c added, "In these close quarters, that might injure one of us."

Sam was stuck. No matter which direction she took, she'd end up in a worse situation. The Goa'uld effectively blocked all egresses to her current position. Medusa drew closer with each step, and with each foot she neared, the device on her palm glowed with more strength.

"You're going to have to use the Wand, Carter."

"I'm trying Sir." Sam's gaze never wavered from the Gorgon. "It won't work." She held it up to show him. "No glowing—see?"

"Teal'c? Ideas?"

"Perhaps we could throw a stone at her, O'Neill."

Jack looked down at the ground and saw the debris littered about. He picked up a medium sized stone and fitted it in his hand. Until the last bout with his knee, he'd played baseball with some local clubs. He pitched every once in a while. Surely he could make a dent in that thick, snake-filled skull.

He breathed out and reared back, letting the stone fly. It bounced off the shield and came back directly at Daniel, who was lucky to duck in time to miss being hit.

Medusa stopped ten feet away from the Major, her hair swirling around her head in a hissing cloud. Slime and gore still dripped off her face and dress, and the livid fury on her face made Sam take another step back. "You will die, daughter of Zeus. Our revenge knows no bounds. We will take pleasure in tearing you apart—one piece at a time."

Sam gathered her strength and tried to force intention into the Wand, but it remained stubbornly dim. She stepped to one side, but nearly lost her footing in the loose gravel and dust. Casting a quick look to the side, she saw her salvation.

"Sir."

"Yeah, Carter?"

"Sir, the stones."

"What about them?"

"Shoot them, sir."

"What?"

"The debris—shoot it!"

Jack followed her gaze and instantly knew what she wanted. Sam dove for the window sill as the three men opened fire on the rock and rubble near the Goa'uld.

Medusa screamed in anger and her hand device discharged, hitting the pile of debris next to her. Teal'c blasted away at the already broken wall with his stolen staff weapon, while the Colonel and Daniel shot continuously at the floor. Their bullets gouged out deep pockets in the stone.

Too late, the Goa'uld realized what they were about. Too late she saw the deep cracks widening in the floor, the gap opening in the roof, and the wall collapsing in towards her. She shrieked and tried to escape, but with a thundering, deafening, crash, the wall collapsed on top of her. The weight of the new debris dislodged the section of floor already cracked by the Wand blast and then weakened further by the bullets and staff blasts, and the whole corner of the structure disintegrated, falling down through all five stories to come to a raucous end on the ground below.

For a moment, all was silent. Dust hovered in the air around them—Sam perched anxiously on her sill, the men of SG-1 standing amidst the lifeless bodies of the Jaffa, their weapons still raised.

Sam closed her eyes, letting out a huge sob of relief. She could see down below—could see the enormous pile of stone and wreckage beneath them—could see one green hand open, motionless, pathetic, draped over a piece what was left of the ancient device.

A faint sound emanated from the doorway. Despite themselves, Daniel, Sam, Teal'c, and the Colonel all turned to see the newcomer. The little Mazdan in the nubby bathrobe moved haltingly into the chamber. He'd replaced his hat and was busily twisting his beard between his nervous fingers.

"Is she dead? Is she finished?" His tiny voice sounded reedy and frail.

Sam didn't even care who he was. She nodded in answer to his question.

"She's dead?" O'Neill found his voice next. He crossed the still sturdy part of the floor and extended a hand to Sam, who took it and steadied herself as she climbed down. Shaking, she was embarrassed to find that she couldn't support herself. The Colonel held her up with an arm around her waist.

Daniel spoke next. "Really dead?"

If Jack leaned just _so_, he could see the green hand, the still fingers.

He straightened back up and hugged Carter closer. Over her head, he nodded at Teal'c and Daniel.

He blew out through pursed lips, releasing a bit of tension.

He could smile after a few more moments. And then he just had to say it.

"She's dead. Well,_ ding dong_."


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

"We did that backwards, you know."

Daniel was the first to speak after they left the partially collapsed North Tower.

They had gathered their gear and repacked. Carter and Daniel had checked out the device in the other room, but it seemed to be out of juice. They couldn't figure out if that was because of the destruction on the other side of the building, or if someone long before had used it and it hadn't recharged. Whatever the cause, even when O'Neill had put his head directly into the cone, it hadn't engaged. Unable to find a panel of any sort that would reveal the device's inner workings, they had abandoned it.

All that crap for exactly a butt-full of squat-nothing.

So they had packed up and were back on the road back to the village, a different group than had headed out from Mazd.

Carter appeared the most changed. Still wearing the ripped blue dress, still with the golden shoes on, carrying the pack that was sort of the cause of all her issues, she looked gaunt and a little hollow—as if she'd lost something important. Her stride said it all. Purposeful without desire. She just wanted to get home and wash the dust of this mission off and then go to bed for a few days or so.

O'Neill and Daniel followed closely behind her, accompanied by Tim. He'd looked so apologetic about the whole situation that they had allowed him to follow them back to the village. He'd been unable to help them with the other ancient device, claiming that he didn't know how it worked, either. Its invention had been after he'd already been imprisoned in the other one.

O'Neill wasn't sure he quite believed it, but oh well.

Teal'c brought up the rear. He'd been the only one willing to dig around in the wreckage of the building to make certain that the Goa'uld actually had been dead. He was also the only one of the party actually smiling. It always made him happy for a few days to cross another one off the list. O'Neill wondered if it made him even happier that this one hadn't even been on the list to be begin with—it was kind of a bonus Goa'uld. Whatever, the big guy was happy. No piece of fruit in the commissary would be safe from his celebratory gastronomical grazing.

So it was that, lacking a firm reference point, it took O'Neill a few minutes to grasp what Daniel was talking about.

"Backwards? How's that?"

Daniel shrugged. "Well, in the movie, the first witch gets killed by the falling building, and the second witch gets done in by water. Sam killed the first Goa'uld here with water—the kawoosh—and the second one got killed by the falling building." Daniel's hands, as usual, were talking with him, and his index fingers rotated around each other in the vague shape of a Ferris wheel. "See? Backwards."

"Yeah, well, that's the least of what went wrong here."

"I know." Daniel looked at Jack sideways, biting his lip. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

Jack regarded Sam, walking far enough ahead of them that she probably couldn't hear them. "Yeah—might take a few days or so. But she'll be okay."

Daniel took his life into his hands and asked something else. "Will you be okay? I mean—the two of you—" Finger Ferris wheels again. The digits whirred in front of Daniel's face.

Jack's eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses as he made sense of the words combined with the frantic finger work. "What exactly are you asking about, Daniel?"

"I saw you. In the prison cell. Once Sam had been brought back in. The two of you were—"

"Offering support and comfort to each other as fellow soldiers?"

"Kissing." Daniel swallowed. Hard.

Jack couldn't look at Daniel. He knew that, whatever military aptitude the other man lacked, he had an uncanny ability to read human beings.

"We weren't kissing."

"You were—_not_ kissing."

"We're not allowed to kiss."

"You're not allowed to do a lot of stuff."

Plodding boots filled the void for a few beats while Jack tried to figure out what to say. He could opt for silence, but he knew that Daniel deserved more than that.

"I can't explain what's going on there—but Sam and I haven't ever done anything to compromise our missions, nor our standing as officers."

"I didn't think you would." Daniel answered honestly. "More's the pity."

"How's that?" Jack's voice came out more gruffly than he would have wanted. He regretted that, but couldn't find a way to fix it.

"Because you're good for each other." Daniel's blue gaze rested on Jack's face. "Because I see the way you look at her and she looks at you and I think that, given the opportunity, things between you could be really good."

"Besides the fact that you love each other." A reedy little voice opined from somewhere near O'Neill's elbow.

They'd almost forgotten about Tim.

"Watch it, little guy." O'Neill warned, more curtly than he'd intended.

"I do not mean to intrude, good sir, I am only referring to the fact that once you have found one such as this, you should not squander any opportunity."

"I'm not squandering anything." But even Jack didn't sound convinced.

"One might decline to agree with that assessment," said the Wizard. "Some of us have peered into the souls of others, you might recall."

O'Neill frowned and looked at the Wizard from beneath his glasses. "Isn't there such a thing as Colonel-Oracle privilege?"

"I do not understand why you fight against it." The Mazdan started twisting his beard again. "It's a good thing your Samantha still has the Wand of Light and Golden Shoes."

As if that would fix things.

O'Neill grunted and shot Daniel a look. "Watch out for our little friend here, Danny. I've gotta talk to Teal'c."

Jack dropped back to walk next to the Jaffa, and Daniel smiled when, after ten minutes or so, the Colonel still hadn't said a word.

----OOOOOOO----

They hadn't actually passed this portion of the road before. This had been traveled while the four of them had been unconscious. Daniel thought it looked like every other planet they'd been to before. Trees. Lots and lots of trees.

Thus it was that Daniel, being bored, turned his attention back to the Wizard.

"So. You're the Wizard?"

"Some call me that."

"And some call you Tim."

"Yes—it's a shorter version of my own blessed name given me by my parents."

"Which is—"

"Timotheopolislodicritous."

Daniel grinned. "You're kidding me, right?"

Tim looked genuinely confused. "Why would I joke about something so powerful as a name?"

"Why indeed?" Daniel inclined his head. "How did you become the Wizard?"

The little man reflected for a time, obviously gathering his thoughts. "Well, I lived with my people in a grand village."

"Yeah."

"They were obsessed with finding a path into the eternities that would allow their consciousnesses to continue to thrive. They considered it to be important to be enlightened."

"Everyone needs to grow. Otherwise you stagnate."

"But they were still a living society—not everyone was old, nor yet ready to finish living life. Children were still being born. People still were marrying and still they obsessed about nothing more than enlightenment. I couldn't see where the excitement was. I loved being alive—being physical. The simple joy of touching a flower, or feeling the breeze on your cheek, or kissing a pretty girl. Enlightenment doesn't focus on these things."

"No, I would imagine not."

Tim shrugged. "The others considered me to be a rube. They thought me to be less than they—because I wanted to experience physical life. I felt sorry for them, you see—and most especially for their children. They taught their children only to work. Not to play—not to live."

"So you started inventing things that would allow the kids a chance to have fun, while at the same time accomplishing something towards their enlightenment."

"Yes." The little man sighed. "The others did not approve."

Daniel nodded. "Turns out they had a reason."

"Yes. But my intention was not to create such a means of destruction." He looked earnestly up at Daniel. "The Wand of Light and Golden Shoes are capable of great good, as well."

"But it's left up to the intentions of the user. That's problematic. Surely you can see that."

Tim's eyes clouded with sadness. "Of course I can. That is why they must stay with Major Carter."

"Will she ever be able to take them off?" Daniel pointed ahead to where the Golden Shoes still glittered on his teammate's feet.

"Yes." Tim said simply. "When it's time."

Daniel gazed up ahead to where the field of flowers loomed. "So you don't think that the flowers will knock us out this time?"

Tim shook his head. "We will be able to traverse the field without ill effects. The safeguards are no longer necessary."

And it was true. They passed through without as much as a yawn.

----OOOOOOO----

The decision was made to continue pushing through to the village even as darkness fell. The whole of SG-1 had long since been ready for this mission to end, and they couldn't see prolonging it for a night of camping.

They entered the main portion of the village in full night. Overhead, a large moon gave them light as they skirted around the main part of the town and cut through the main square towards the 'Gate.

Sam got there first. In complete contradiction with her normal routine, she dropped her pack at the foot of the platform and let herself fall right next to it. She gathered her knees close and laid her forehead down, enfolding herself in her arms.

Jack took a deep breath and reached out to catch Daniel's sleeve.

"Danny."

"Yeah, Jack."

"I—uh—think she needs a minute. Why don't you and Teal'c go into the village and find a place for Tim to stay for a while."

Daniel followed Jack's gaze towards Sam, and he nodded. "Yeah. I think that might be a good idea."

Jack waited until they had disappeared into the maze of houses before crossing the platform and sitting himself down quietly next to her.

He could hear her breathing. He could practically hear her heart beating. The night seemed to close in around them, as if there weren't several thousand other people in this place, under this same moon, breathing in this same night.

He nudged her with his shoulder.

She lifted an elbow so that he could hear her. "Sir, I'm really not in the mood."

"Not in the mood for what?"

She lifted her head, and looked at him with tired, honest eyes. "This. Whatever _this_ is that you and I do. I can't—not tonight."

"I'm just here for you. I'm not asking for anything else."

"Maybe that's the problem, sir."

Jack was stumped. He considered that for at least three elephants before asking. "How could that be a problem? I thought women were into patient guys—men who didn't make demands."

Sam rolled her eyes. She fidgeted with her skirt, then with the clasp on one of the shoes, and finally settled with picking at one of the embroidered flowers on her dress. She was working up her courage. So _this_ is how she did it when she couldn't play with a computer or some other techno-bit.

Finally she found her words. He watched, fascinated, as she took a deep breath. The light and the dress and the breathing—he could have watched _that_ for hours.

"I know that you were wondering what was wrong with me at the beginning of this mission. Why I was a little bit—"

"Out of sorts?" O'Neill filled in.

"Okay—we'll go with that."

"Go where?"

"Sir." That sigh. That sigh could really hurt.

"Sorry." He sounded really contrite this time.

"Well, there is a reason."

"Which is?"

"Do you really want to know?

"Do I?" He caught her eye.

She was looking at him intently, her brows lifting slightly, her lips tight. She made the decision to speak, and she folded her hands on her lap.

"Do you ever get lonely, Sir?"

"What do you mean? We're always together. We're a team."

"Yeah, and Teal'c goes home to Drey'auc, and Daniel's dating this girl in accounting—"

Jack shook his head in consternation. "What? When did this happen? Who?"

"Karen something—Lee—I think. Doesn't matter—it's been a few months, now. But the point is that he goes home and can go out with her." She paused, serious. "But you and I. We go home to what? Nothing. Nobody. We don't even have pets."

Jack found his fingernails very interesting.

"I'm lonely, sir. What we do—this flirting, or whatever you want to call it. It's not enough. I need more."

O'Neill felt as if he'd been punched in the gut.

"You said you wanted to leave it in the room."

"There are days—moments—when I would gladly take that back."

Jack exhaled through pursed lips. "It's against regulations."

"I know." She looked up at the moon. "It doesn't change the fact that I need more than this."

He waited a long time before speaking again. "So, you're gonna start dating someone?"

"I'd like to."

There weren't enough elephants that he could count to allow him to control his voice. It cracked on his next question. "Do I know him?"

He could _hear_ her smile.

"You remember when I went to visit my brother last Christmas?"

"Mark? Yeah—his wife had just had the baby."

"I hated being there."

"I thought you had a good time."

"Yeah—I did—but at the same time I hated it. It reminded me of everything I can't have."

"We've discussed this, Carter."

"I know. But it reminded me that I'm a girl. I looked at my brother and his wife and their kids—that sweet baby—it just reminded me that I'm a girl. And I lost that somehow. It doesn't matter how or when—I thought that I needed to be tough and brusque and manly—and I do—I'm a soldier and I'm doing the right thing. But what I need from time to time is to be reminded that I'm a girl." Abruptly, she stood. "I don't know. Maybe some of us aren't meant to have anything like that. Maybe people like us are meant to pave the way for _other_ people to have that other life."

Jack watched her as she climbed a few steps. A slight breeze tickled at her skirt, teasing the hem around her ankles.

"From where I sit, you have never looked like a man."

"That's because from where you're sitting now, you can see up my skirt." She smiled broadly, dimples and all.

"Sam." Jack stood and followed her up the steps. "I understand what you're saying. We've talked about this before."

"I know." She moved so that she was close enough to feel his warmth. "I know."

"So, you're going to date other people?"

She turned and climbed to the top of the platform. The moon bathed her in light, limning her hair, her luminous skin, with a glow that was both unearthly and profound. She looked down at him, watched as he ascended to her level. "I need more."

"How much more?"

She made her way to the 'Gate, and reached out one of her elegant, capable hands to touch the metal.

"Have you ever noticed that the 'Gate isn't really ever cold?"

"What?" Jack approached her and reached around her to feel the gray stone of the Stargate. "I haven't really ever thought of it."

"There's a ton of latent energy in the 'Gate. There's always the possibility that it can turn on—at any time. So, the energy coursing through the 'Gate makes it warm to the touch."

She turned to face him. "I think that's kind of how you and I are. We are always running—either towards something or away from something, and that never allows—this _thing_ we have—to cool off."

"So you think if we just stopped and let it catch us it would fizzle?"

"Wouldn't that make it easier to move on if we knew?"

Jack licked his lips. She stood close—too close—leaning slightly against the side of the 'Gate. Her eyes were huge—inviting him in. Her face shone with a combination of nervous energy and frustration, and he was sure that if he had a mirror, his would look similar.

"Sam." But he couldn't say any more when her hand reached out and fingered the front of his BDU shirt. She bit her bottom lip, concentrating on finding his dog tags and hooking her finger into the chain.

In all honesty, he didn't even think that she pulled all that hard. The next thing he knew, he had both hands caging her into the 'Gate and her palms were resting on his chest. Who kissed whom first was irrelevant, he just knew that she tasted like heaven—like everything that was right in the universe. Noses bumping slightly, they switched positions, her arms threading around her shoulders and neck, and his hands trailing down her sides, resting on her hips. She sighed slightly, nipping at his bottom lip, and then his cheek, and finally ending with a brush of lips to his neck and a full-body hug that felt so good that he wondered if she wasn't magical, after all.

If the 'Gate hadn't been there to hold them up, they most likely would have ended up in steaming heaps on the ground.

Who knows how long they stood there. It might have been hours before they heard Daniel's discreet cough.

Jack mumbled something against Sam's hair. Sam made a purring noise in the back of her throat that Jack knew would haunt him forever.

Teal'c coughed next. His was anything but discreet. Spell broken, Sam peeked up and over Jack's shoulder.

Three smiling faces met hers. Tim stood, gleeful, between a gloating Daniel and a smug Teal'c.

"I knew it!" Tim clapped his hands together softly. "I knew it!"

A Jaffa hand on his shoulder quieted him. "Are you ready to journey back to Earth, Colonel O'Neill?" Teal'c asked quietly.

"In a minute." Jack drew back from Sam, giving her a slow grin. He turned, still managing to remain in physical contact with her—a hand at the small of her back. "Did we get Tim here set up with housing?"

"Yes, yes. I will quarter with Yeoman Bobs and his wife Tilda until a cottage may be made for me."

Daniel nodded. "We told them that they didn't have to worry about the Goa'uld anymore, and that the devices that had drawn people here had been destroyed. To say they were happy would be an understatement."

Teal'c responded with a slight inclination of his head. "Indeed. The townspeople seemed most delighted that they would receive no more visitors from the Goa'uld. The Tau'ri, however, are welcome back at any time."

Tim stepped forward and knelt down in front of Sam. "May I please see them again?"

Knowing exactly what he referred to, Carter held out one foot, and then the other, as the clasps finally fell away and the shoes released their hold on her feet. Tim gathered them to his body, hugging them gently. "Capable of such wonder." He said. With a certain sadness, he laid them at Carter's feet again and held out his hand. "The Wand? May I say farewell to it as well?"

Sam retrieved it from the holster on her thigh. Again, the little man caressed it, held it, and bid it goodbye. He laid it on top of the shoes, then removed his hat. Gathering the items in his hands, he inserted them into the stocking cap, then wrapped the long end of the cap around the package, finally making a crude knot in the end to fasten it together.

"I may not have helped you much—you have to understand that the devices follow certain rules." He took Carter's hand in his own smaller one. "I know that I have been the source of difficulty for you." He turned to O'Neill. "And for you."

Jack clenched his teeth. "It's all right. It all worked out in the end."

"It will." The Wizard nodded energetically. "Samantha knows of what I speak. It will work out well. It will be wonderful."

Sam bent down and picked up the colorful knotty package. "Am I supposed to take this home?"

"Keep them safe. Don't give them to anyone else. They are yours—and they won't work for anyone else but you, anyway, and then only once. Remember this."

Daniel turned to Teal'c conspiratorially. "Shoes have rules."

Sam smiled at the Wizard. "Thank you."

"For endangering you—I deserve no thanks. But in many years, return, stay here. Rear your children, and for them I will make them wonderful toys."

Sam nodded, and, on impulse, pressed a quick kiss to his whiskery cheek. Tim turned, gingerly holding his robe aloft as he descended. A small contingent of townspeople had arrived by then, and Daniel was stopped several times by them on his way to the DHD, which was back in its rightful place.

Teal'c, Jack, and Sam descended. Sam opened up her pack and stowed the stocking cap package inside, within some of her personal belongings. Teal'c and Jack first shouldered on their own packs, and then Jack turned to help Sam on with hers.

The 'Gate burst to life, casting Jack and Sam in a blue-tinged glow. As Daniel and Teal'c climbed the steps leading to the event horizon, Jack caught Sam's hand.

"So, did it fizzle?"

Sam grinned ruefully. "Sadly, no."

"So, what now?"

"We'll figure it out. I can't see myself signing on for a dating service or anything."

"What did Tim mean—'in many years, to return'?"

Sam smiled secretively. "The Wand changes matter. The Shoes control time."

"Time travel?"

"Not quite—but say in ten or fifteen years, we finally finish off the Goa'uld, and Earth is safe."

Jack cocked a brow and pretended to count on his fingers. "Let's see—I'm _already_ double digits older than you—"

"A little click and a wave, sir, and we can revert to whatever age we want. We can live an entire other life wherever we choose. Here—or anywhere. The Wizard gave us another chance."

"In the meantime—"

"I'll take what I can get. I've done it now for five years. How much longer can this go on? Eventually, we have to win. That's what we do."

The possibility spread before O'Neill like space itself. The delusion?—Dream?—that he'd had during his consultation with the Oracle crashed back into his mind. Traveling through the 'Gate at will, living a real life, the little pond for fishing, and Sam's lab. With a play pen. A few rugrats underfoot. The alien dog. A full life with everything included.

He closed his eyes before he embarrassed himself. He felt her hand on his jaw, on his neck. "We'll work it out." She sounded sure.

And when he opened his eyes again, her blue ones met his with certainty.

She smiled again, broadly, brightly, and he remembered why he did what he did.

"So." He motioned for Teal'c and Daniel to join them at the event horizon. With a brief wave at the assembled crowd—and a pointed look and gesture towards Tim the Wizard, he turned towards the 'Gate. "Let's go, people."

And just because he had to, he smiled.

"There's no place like home."


	25. Chapter 25

_Because you asked for it, here it is. . ._

Epilogue

"Mom?" His voice echoed in the hallway. "Mom?"

"In here!" She stood in the kitchen, at the island, her long wheat colored ponytail swinging as she bent over the work top. The remains of the family's microwave oven scattered the marble surface, and she was working on a circuit board with a soldering iron. What made the job difficult was the baby standing unsteadily, holding onto her leg. Caleb had decided at the ripe old age of eight months that crawling was boring and he really needed to be walking.

Jacob dropped his backpack onto the kitchen table and unzipped the largest compartment. From it, he withdrew a large book. "You gotta see this."

"Do you have homework?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's Friday."

His mom's face shot up. "Really?" She looked behind her to the large magnetic calendar on the fridge. She could only turn the top half of her body, because to move more than that would dislodge the baby from her leg. "Holy Hannah—where did the week go?"

Jacob smiled. "I've always wondered. Did you start saying that before or after you actually named her?"

"Before. Long before." The expression on her face changed as she turned back to her son. At fifteen, he was already taller than she was. His sandy blond hair was cut short—unlike most of the other boys in the area. There was wisdom in his hazel eyes and something else—strength? She'd always been proud of the fact that underneath it all, he was a good kid. Must have gotten his father's genes.

They both looked out the kitchen window to the little pier. "But she kind of lives up to it, doesn't she?"

Hannah was seven going on thirty-two. She had inherited their mother's vivid blue eyes and honey blond hair, but the obstinate nature of their father. Even now she was out on the pier with him, twin camping chairs at the edge, twin lines floating aimlessly in the water. She actually believed there were fish in there. None of the other O'Neills had the heart to tell her any different.

Jacob sighed. "Yeah, well. She is the middle child. Everyone says they're the most screwed up."

"Jacob." That tone, he'd learned, was a warning.

"Sorry." He started flipping through the pages of the book. "Anyhow, I found something today in this old textbook."

"Oh?" She adjusted the cord of the soldering iron and picked up a long, soft piece of solder. She had found the broken connection and was fixing it. Not because she couldn't afford to buy a new one, but because it was more fun to fiddle with it. And if she couldn't fix it—hey—it wasn't the end of the world. That was the best part about it. That it _wasn't_ the end of the world.

"Yeah—check it out." He'd found the page and laid the book open on the counter top. Carefully pushing some parts—doohickeys, whatever—out of the way, he thumped a picture with his finger. "That kinda looks like you and Dad."

Sam bent over the book and looked. It did indeed look like them. And more than just _kinda_.

Because it _was_ them.

Not that Jacob would know that. He only knew them as his somewhat odd Mom and Dad, who fished where there were no fish, and routinely tore apart household appliances because it was fun, respectively. Jacob's parents were the odd ones in the neighborhood that had grown up in the past twenty years around the cabin. They didn't work outside the home, they called each other weird names, and they couldn't seem to keep their hands off each other. Hence, their propensity to keep having kids.

It was embarrassing.

Now, he watched as his mom as she gazed at the picture. Her face had melted. She laid down the soldering iron, reaching across the island to pull the book closer to her.

He didn't often see his mom cry, but her eyes looked wet. "You okay?"

"Yeah—I'm just thinking about some people I used to know."

The photograph depicted a group of people gathered in front of the Stargate. It was still in the Silo in Cheyenne Mountain, before the whole program had come to light and the 'Gate had been moved to Washington DC. There were Daniel, and Vala, and Teal'c. General Hammond stood at the top of the ramp, his bald head reflecting a bit of the light from the open wormhole. It made him appear to have a halo. Appropriate, given that he'd died not long after the photo was taken. Her finger brushed the glossy portrait of him. She stood next to Jack in the picture, with John Sheppard there, and McKay. Cam Mitchell stood next to Teal'c. Even Siler was there—and that little technician with the bald head and the wisecracks. Harriman? Walters? Walter Harriman. Or was it Davis?

Where had the time gone? They all looked so—old.

Sam grinned. She still talked to Daniel frequently, and instant messaged Vala almost daily. The Jacksons had taken up residence in Virginia after the 'Gate had gone public. Daniel was head curator at the Smithsonian. Their twin girls were fourteen—just younger than Jacob. They'd been picking locks and translating obscure writings since baby-hood.

The people in the picture that had her meditative were those that had chosen _not_ to be in the circle when Sam had finally used the Wizard's Shoes and Wand. Teal'c. Cam. John. Rodney.

McKay had surprised her. She'd thought that he would have jumped at the chance. But his life with Jennifer had been full, until she'd slowly fallen into the oblivion of Alzheimer's, and the cures had, for whatever reason, not helped. She'd died within the year, and McKay had chosen not to relive his life without her. Now he was gone, too.

Teal'c reasons had been simpler. He'd already lived a lifetime longer than everyone else. The last long, long years of his life had been spent in meditation and reflection, and he'd disappeared one day ten or so years ago, and nobody had heard from him since. Daniel posited the theory that he had ascended. Sam had to agree.

The baby lost his grip on Sam's jeans, and slid to a squishy thump on the tile floor. He immediately starting yowling as if his little life had ended.

Jacob rounded the counter and picked him up. "I'll take him. Read the article. It's pretty interesting."

Sam bent over the counter, perusing the article. Yada yada, Stargate program, secret organization. President this, I. O. A. that. She'd lived it, she didn't need to read it. The decision to go public had been made after many people had lived—and died—in the arduous quest to keep the planet safe. It had really been more of an afterthought—when there was no reasonable explanation for some new technologies other than alien involvement. The page in front of her was full of names, dates, and facts, but only one line was said about the flagship team of the SGC. And their names weren't mentioned at all. How quickly time had forgotten. There had never been any acclaim for those who had chosen to risk it all for the sake of the planet. And nobody—_NOBODY_—had given more to the security of the Tau'ri than the man out on the pier right now, quietly fishing with his daughter.

And he would be horrified anyway, at the prospect of being globally recognized for what he considered just doing his job.

Sam had to wipe her eyes at that thought. The baby was only 8 months old—she could still blame the tears on the pregnancy, right?

A noise at the front door brought her back to the present. Footsteps shuffled along the hallway towards the back of the house.

"Mom?" Thirteen year old Hammond came in, scowling.

"What's wrong, kid?"

Hammond dropped his backpack to the floor and headed right to the fridge. "Nothin'." He pulled open the door and removed two juice boxes and a few cheese sticks.

"Yeah. Right." Somehow, she'd learned sarcasm—odd.

Hammond finally focused on his mother. His dark hair was molded to the top of his head until it flared out just above his ears. Hat head. Dark eyes glared out from beneath the mop of bangs.

"What's going on, Hammond?"

He considered briefly before answering.

"Well, I'm not in trouble."

"We'll see about that."

"I just had a little fight. But it wasn't on school grounds this time."

"Did you win?" Jacob had reentered the kitchen, still carrying Caleb, who no longer squished, and smelled better. The baby had all four of the fingers of his right hand in his mouth and was drooling around them.

"Jake—"

"Stopping talking."

Sam raised her eyebrows and looked steadily at her second son. He'd sat at the stools on the other side of the island and peeled back the plastic on a cheese stick. Half of it disappeared into his mouth with his first bite.

"So. Fight?"

Chewing happened. "You know Brandon?"

"Yeah."

"He said that Dad's lazy because he doesn't work. He says he's probably getting some kind of welfare."

"So you fought him to clear your dad's good name? In defense of family?"

"Yeah." Defiant, his brown eyes dared her to get mad.

"Did you hurt him a lot?"

"Bloody nose. Torn pants."

Sam shrugged. "Serves him right."

Another set of footsteps clamored up the wooden steps to the outside deck. "Mom! Mom!" The French door leading outside slammed open, rattling the windows. "Hammond was fighting ag—" Mitchell stopped short when he saw his older brother already polishing off his second juice box. "Dangit! How did you get home before me? Geez. You coulda waited."

Hammond ignored his little brother. Ten year olds were so lame.

"Did he tell you about the fight?" Mitchell dropped his backpack in the middle of the floor, pushing his glasses back up his nose with one hand as he wiped it with the back of the other hand. "It was so cool."

"Just for the record—all of you—fighting is _not_ cool." She felt obligated to say it. But, coming from her, she felt really, _really_ hypocritical. Someday that was going to come back and bite her in the butt.

"Brandon called dad a lazy ass, and Hammond just knocked the crap out of him. Bam! Right off his bike. Brandon got up and tried to kick him in the nu—I mean—_there_—" he motioned vaguely to his fly before hurtling on. "But Hammond grabbed him by the shirt and just—wham!—right in the nose. Aw, man, it was _awesome_." His worship for his older brother knew no bounds.

"Okay—Guys." Sam held her hands up to get their attention. Six eyes on her, she started pointing. "Hammond—don't fight again. Just tell people that your dad's retired. Mitchell—really—_nuts_? And Jacob—thanks for the diaper change and the help." She held out her arms for the baby. "Everybody go put your things away—not on the floor. Change and get ready for dinner."

Hammond, the eternal grazer, was grateful enough not to be in trouble that he actually threw his garbage in the can before heading down the hall and upstairs.

Footsteps thundered overhead as the three boys did as they'd been told. After a few minutes they quieted. Computer games for Hammond and Jake, thought Sam, and a book for Mitchell.

She crossed to where the high chair sat in the corner of the room and pulled it back near the island. Strapping Caleb in, she searched absently in the utensil drawer for something safe and yet reasonably interesting for him to play with. She came up with a rubber basting brush, a few measuring spoons, and a funnel.

Baby now happy, she turned back to the book. Flipping the pages before and after, she found no more mention of the project. Nothing about the planets they'd visited, the people they'd liberated. Instead, the technology they'd recovered filled the pages—Asgard energy modules and beaming apparatus, Goa'uld healing devices that had been tweaked for human medical treatments, and Ancient devices that had advanced the cause of humanity far enough ahead to have brought a relative peace to the planet. So much information about the _what_, but nothing about the _who_.

With a sudden motion, she flipped the book shut and turned her attention back to the microwave. The dinner she'd mentioned before wasn't going to happen until she got the microwave reassembled. The solder held well as she meticulously put the parts back together. Within a few minutes she had the thing mostly restored, except for the case.

They'd all talked about it through the subsequent years. They had decided to utilize the devices from Mazd only when there was no other choice. In the end, that choice had been made for them.

Jack, with his decade start on the rest of them, had proven to be the healthiest of them all. His years spent with the Homeworld Security office had helped—it had kept him away from things and people shooting at him. Except for various presidents, who had routinely threatened to do it whenever he got too "Jack" with them.

Daniel had a mild bout with a heart issue. Easily fixed with newer medications.

Vala had been challenged in other ways. She and Daniel had finally given up trying to have children around the time Sam came back from the Pegasus Galaxy.

But then Sam had found the lump. Malignant. Metastasized. Full lymph node involvement. She'd been given three months. Not even the newest cures could have stopped the progression of the disease. She'd quietly resigned her commission, O'Neill had just as quietly retired. They'd met at the cabin, on the pier, just the four of them. Without much discussion, they had gathered in a circle. It had seemed appropriate to touch somehow—Sam, with the shoes on and the wand held in front of her, Daniel's and Jack's hands at her elbows and holding each of Vala's hands.

She'd closed her eyes and imagined an outcome, felt the shoes tingle and the wand vibrate, and simply clicked. No fireworks, no huge display. A simple change—healing, ending and beginning.

And their eyes had opened in younger faces, their hands had lost wrinkles and liver spots. Bodies regenerated back to something post teen and pre thirties—it really didn't matter.

The Wand of Light and Golden Shoes had been placed in a box where they still sat in the back of the O'Neill's closet. That box had long ago been buried by other boxes. Sam's wedding dress, Jacob's first baby clothes, family pictures, memories.

Her hands stilled on the microwave case. Without realizing it, she'd gotten it back together.

Ruefully, she smiled. She _still_ had it.

The back door banged again and in skipped Hannah. Reddish blond curls, eyes as blue as the ocean, dimples, and a smile that could power the universe. Was it right to be so in love with one's children? Of course, they all freely admitted that Hannah used her powers of cute for evil. The Ori had nothing on this child to enchant devoted followers.

"Hello, Hannah Banana." They'd sworn as they'd named her that they would never call her that. It had taken a note home to her parents for her kindergarten teacher to learn that her real middle name was Grace.

"Hey, Mom." Hannah plopped herself on the stool that Hammond had so recently vacated. "What's this?" She'd glommed onto the text book immediately.

"Jake brought that home from school."

"What's in it?"

"You can read, _you_ figure it out."

Something—karma?—led her to turn right to the page Sam had just been looking at.

"Hey, Mom, it looks like you and Daddy."

The door slammed again and Jack walked in. He crossed to the island and leaned over it. "What looks like Mom and me?"

Hannah pointed to the picture.

"Well, good grief. Will you look at that?" Hannah was uncharacteristically silent as her father looked at the book.

"Jake brought it home from school." Sam plugged the microwave in to see if it would work. It beeped once and then all the winky blinky lights went on. Success.

"They all look really old. They look like you, but old. Really _super_ old."

"Hey, not that old, banana head."

Hannah's expression told him that she clearly didn't agree with him.

"Go get ready for dinner." Sam closed the book again and unplugged the microwave.

Curls danced as their daughter hopped down off the stool and skipped towards the stairs. "Don't do anything gross!" She threw the order over her shoulder.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Well. She told you." He straightened and rounded the island, watching as Sam replaced the appliance on the counter where it belonged and plugged it in again. She hadn't turned back around when she felt his fingers, then his breath, on the nape of her neck. "Nothing gross," he whispered, before brushing the back of her neck with a kiss.

Sam shivered. How, after eighteen years of marriage, he could still do this to her, she didn't know, but without the counter there to support her, she'd have been a puddle.

The hand on her nape traveled downward, tracing the line of her spine, and hooking briefly in the waistband of her jeans, before laying possessively on her hip. She could feel his breath on her neck, the heat of his body behind her.

See, the magic of the Golden Shoes hadn't been in the manipulation of time, the Wand of Light hadn't manifested its power in rearranging matter.

The magic had been that the Wizard had given them the power to make time matter.

This is what they had saved in all their travels and trials. The possibility of this time. This place. These children. This life. It mattered.

She turned in his arms and smiled. "You know, you really did look old in that picture."

"It was all the gray hair. You said at the time that it made me look distinguished."

Sam grinned, exposing the genes from whence had sprung their daughter's dimples. "I lied."

"You lied."

She nodded. "It's just what women say to really hot guys who just happen to have gray hair."

"Why would such women say such things?"

Sam's expression became one of mock sincerity. She leaned up and whispered in his ear.

Jack fought a grin, but his hand tightened on her hip. "So basically you're saying that women have needs?"

She nodded.

"You know what helps?"

She shook her head. "Enlighten me."

"Picture Harry Maybourne naked."

It still hurt when she whacked him.

It still tingled when he kissed her.

Forehead to forehead, they stood for a long time, amidst the noise of the life they'd made. Caleb banged his spoons on the tray of the high chair, Jacob had turned up the music in his room to cover the sound of Hammond and Mitchell shooting Nerf guns at each other. From the click click click sounds on the stairs, they knew that Hannah was wearing her tap shoes.

The clicking stopped in the doorway, followed by an exaggerated "eeeeew" sound.

"I thought I told you guys no gross stuff."

The clicking passed by them through the kitchen and disappeared into the entry way and out the front door.

"I love you, Carter."

"I love you, too, Sir."


End file.
